High Times - Dating/Cooking Sim news & patch notes

Welcome to the Hotbox, the hottest box in town!

It took us a long time to get here, but finally, High Times is now available worldwide on Steam! Thank you so much for all your love and support throughout its years of development!

In this game, you will...

• 🏢 Manage your own shop

• 🍩 Cook mood-enhancing donuts

• 👩 Get to know over 30 customers

• 👨‍🍳 Customize your character

• 🦋 Make countless choices that affect the story

• 📝 Discover over 50 endings

• 🎶 Vibe to a blend of lo-fi, city pop and rock music

• 🏆 Hunt for over 230 achievements

The Deluxe Edition is also available and it includes the game's 🖼️ Digital Artbook and 💿 Original Soundtrack.

Donuts Go With Everything

We're proud to announce our bundle with another popular game about serving customers, Coffee Talk! This game is about having heart-to-heart talks over coffee, and as we all know, nothing pairs better with coffee than donuts!

Another game that we're bundling up with is none other than Wax Heads! In Wax Heads, you get to manage a record store, and what better way to enjoy your sweet donuts then jamming to some sweet tunes.

YYM Games Deep Discount

Lastly, to top off this celebration, all of our previous titles are on their highest discounts yet!

If you enjoy being emotionally traumatized, you're right at home with The Letter & Saint Maker.

But if laifu is waifu, then you'll love Love Esquire & Perfect Gold.

Thank you, Mood Confectioners! See you all at the Hotbox! 🍩✨

Dear Mood Confectioners,

As of writing, we're less than 8 hours away from fully launching High Times out into the world. What a wild 6 years it had been, full of sweat, blood, and lots and LOTS of sugary donuts! As the clock ticks down to release, we just want to thank everyone for helping us reach an amazing 50,000 wishlists!!! We never could have imagined we'd reach this number! Suffice to say, in a game about donuts, you guys have been the sweetest part of this journey. THANK YOU! 🍩 ✨

Since launch is close, we decided to put together a quick FAQ to answer any questions you guys might have for the game:

FAQ

How much will the game cost?

$19.99 with a 10% discount during launch week.

What is the age rating?

High Times is suitable for ages 15 and above.

What languages are supported?

English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, German, French

Is the game Steam Deck compatible?

Yes, although it won’t be verified at launch. Verification is in process as we're writing this update.

How long is the game?

We're estimating a single playthrough to last 15-20 hours. If you're a completionist, it may take 30-50 hours.

How many endings are there?

High Times has 51 endings in total across the entire game.

The 6 dateable characters have 3 endings each (bad, friendship, romance). The rest of the characters have 1-2 endings (bad, good).

How much of the game can I stream?

You can stream everything! Our only request is you include a link to our Steam page in your video.

What are the content warnings?

Adult humour; Sexual jokes; Suggestive themes related to drugs, alcohol and grief-related trauma

Is the game cozy?

While the game does touch upon some adult humour and other mature topics, the game provides a cozy experience through low-stakes experiences and relaxing game mechanics.

Are all characters romanceable?

So far, only 6 characters are dateable (4 female, 2 male - MJ, Harry, Stacy, Connor, Emmette & Lucy).

Do you plan on adding more romanceable characters?

We would love to! If High Times does well on release, it would allow us to keep working on the game and introduce more male characters and make certain fan favorite characters romanceable!

Is there explicit/R18 content?

None at the moment!

Where can I report bugs?

We're most active at our Discord server! You can also post your bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2251220/discussions/0/588432892837883117/

Thank you so much for your support and we hope to see you at The Hotbox! ːamyhappyː

With only three weeks left until launch, we thought we'd take a closer look at one of the systems you'll use in High Times. 

We talked about how tags work in our Donut Day post, but we thought we’d dedicate a whole dev log post about them since there’s a lot we haven’t mentioned before! 

The mood categories

Some customers know exactly what they want.

Take Jojo, for example:

Jojo’s asking for very specific things here, so let’s try to break his order down! If we ask him to clarify his order, he’ll even give us more clues. 

Our glazes fall into three different categories: Vibes, Chill, and Motivation. These are usually the main tags to look out for since it’s all about the mood-enhancing in the Hotbox, but sometimes our customers have other requests! 

Jojo wants something Bitter (Matcha or Chocolate) but not Chill, which leaves us with… Chocolate. He also wants something Light, so make sure there’s no more than three elements on his donut! 

And what’s this? He also mentions not wanting something Fruity. Which means we shouldn’t add elements like Fresh Strawberries or Cereal on his donut.

Absolutely not! 

Donuts will take on all of the properties of each ingredient, but we still need to pay attention to what the customer is asking for!

For example, Billie asks for a Light donut with Fruity toppings. But even if the donut above has both the Light and Fruity tags, it doesn’t actually have the toppings she asked for…

Sorry, Billie! 🥹

By the way, there are some customers who are Absolutely Not Fans of certain ingredients, so it’s probably a good idea to take note of their likes and dislikes!

Are you ready for messy people and emotional donuts? Because our cosy cafe is opening in less than a month!! Don't forget to wishlist High Times to get updates upon launch! 🍩🍩

Thanks as always for reading our logs! And tell us: Are you the type who likes to FAFO when it comes to cooking sims? 💀 Or would you be careful about customer preferences? 🤗 (No one in High Times is allergic to anything, don’t worry! At least… so far!)

An unfamiliar High Times

You see the familiar kitchen layout but what’s this? The donut looks different… even the names are different. That’s right! It’s High Times before we removed all the drug jokes. The flavour and topping names used to drug puns. We’re pretty fond of ‘Chococaine’ and ‘Matchajuana’. 

We did have to change everything to avoid getting slapped with an M rating, but here’s a fun fact: we actually still use the original drug names in the code 😂 So a customer might ask for a passion donut, but internally it’s all about that ‘ContainsFlavor()==ubecstacy’. 

It’s in the details

The High Times logo was also changed. The pill on the top of the donut has been changed into a star. What do you think of this change? 

Of course, we didn’t have to change everything. The Hotbox, which is a slang for an air-tight room where people can smoke weed, remained as the name of our beloved mood cafe. (Fun fact: the YYM discord server’s voice chat is also called #The-Hotbox!) 

And of course, there’s our main characters! 

Based on drugs

A lot of people were curious about the lore behind the main characters’ names so here we go (shoutout to The Lemon Lord on Steam for getting all the correct answers!)

MJ Hayes = Marijuana 

Her full name is Mary Jane Hayes, what else do we need to say? 😂 Her green hair is also meant to evoke weed. 

Aside from the obvious, we also wanted their names and personalities to match. Remember when High Times was originally a closure simulator? Well, part of the story was exploring the toxic trait of each ex that led to their breakup. By the way, we’re not saying MC is completely innocent in this: the final boss is figuring out what drove MC to pretty much ghost the people they cared about and avoid making real connections with them. 

In MJ’s case, she was originally set to be a girl failure who flakes out on band practice out of apathy. We’re not saying this is a common thing with people who smoke weed, of course, but since we wanted to explore toxic traits we considered the negative things associated with each drug. 

Emmette Meine = methamphetamine 

Emmette is methamphetamine! You can still see some of her original setting in how she likes Focus donuts: she likes to be highly focused and alert. But meth also causes a feeling of euphoria. This was changed in the final game but Emmette and MC’s relationship used to be one of co-dependence: Emmette where she needs someone to pamper and take care of, while MC needed the pampering due to problems with their home life. 

In fact, an earlier outline of Emmette’s story had MC dropping her like a hot potato once their personal problems started calming down… Not a very good look for MC, is it? 🥹 Maybe changing the story was for the best. 

Lucy Dee = LSD

Her name references the street name for the drug. Don’t let Lucy’s colourful design and her energy fool you: her older design had her playing some mean pranks on MC and the Hotbox in revenge for MC ghosting her when they were kids! What can we say? Lucy took her Grudge Note seriously. Back then, she was the fun childhood friend who took things too far without thinking much about it–a far cry from the final version of her, who tends to overthink 🥹

What remained unchanged is that Lucy and MC go way back: the two of them didn’t have a lot of friends back in grade school. 

Harry Yen = heroin

Just like meth, heroin has euphoric effects. And there are also a few more similarities between her and Harry. That is, in their initial concept and before we finalised their stories 😅 Harry started dating MC in college, but got ghosted when MC’s home life took a turn for the worse. And similarly to Emmette, there’s a sense of co-dependency between MC and Harry, except this time there’s rivalry added to the mix. The two of them are bakers and Harry is a very competitive person. 

The rivalry between Harry and MC mellowed out a lot in the final draft, but the sparks definitely stayed! 😌 

Stacy Ortiz = Ecstasy

Stacy is the one-night stand, the summer fling who popped back in MC’s life bringing her own baggage and drama. She’s a bit of a party girl too; it takes a certain type of person to keep up with Stacy’s energy, exactly like the drug she was named after. Her story more or less remained intact from the initial conception aside from minor tweaks here and there! There’s really nothing like the soap opera type of influencer drama when you’re just watching from the sidelines! 

What do you think, gang? Which relationship do you think is the most spicy? 

💚 MJ 

💙 Emmette

💛 Lucy

💜 Stacy

🤎 Harry

In most dating sims, you meet people for the first time.

In High Times? Things are not that easy!

Your MC already has history with the people they’ll meet… and maybe even some unresolved feelings.

Since your character comes with emotional baggage, we wanted players to have full control of how the MC looks!

Building the Main Character

There’s a risk in having a main character who already has some existing baggage with the main cast: not only has MC dated a bunch of different people before the game has started, but they’re also partly at fault for those relationships having failed in the first place. 

For one thing, we’re asking people to believe that the player character has dated characters that they (player) would be meeting for the first time. Having a balance between the old bonds between those characters and how they interact with each other in the present is important. We don’t want players to feel like they’re only hearing one half of the conversation!

Here’s a tiny preview of Emmette trying to be honest: \link goes to Soundcloud]

And of course, we’re also asking the player to be fine with having no control over the MC’s past and the people they have dated. You’ll be able to choose whom to date in the actual game (and it’s fine not to date anyone at all), but MC’s past has already been solidified. This isn’t gonna be everyone’s cup of tea but we’re glad that people seem to be open to the idea. Maybe this might not be a good idea in the long run, but who hasn’t ever thought about getting back with their ex? 🥹

tl;dr: MC is a bit messy, but we hope you don’t hold that against them 🥹

Customising the Main Character

Since your character already has backstory, we wanted them to still feel yours 🥹 We’ve come a long way from the character creation menu pictured above. Not only do we have more colour options and added a couple more body types, but we even added options to change MC’s Hotbox uniform. 

We asked our Kickstarter backers to vote on which Hotbox uniform options people wanted to see in the game. The set that won has been added to MC’s choices! Maybe a donut floater option in a future DLC? 🥹🤲 

(We also ran this poll on Patreon for those who are interested!)

Customise your MC in our demo! (Feel free to show off and tag us on social media as well, we love all the MCs)

If you like cozy cafés, messy people, and emotional donuts, don’t forget to wishlist High Times.

Thanks as always for the support, gang… And tell us: what’s more important to you in dating sims:

👀 character customisation

💘 romance

💥 messy drama 

We’ve already given you a taste of the various donuts you could order from the Hotbox menu… and to celebrate National Donut Day, we figured it’s time to talk about how donut-making works. Not just how the customers react to the mood enhancers, but also the different patterns in how they ask for donuts! 

The Branching Path of Donut Reactions 

A new customer drops by the Hotbox and is unfamiliar with how mood enhancers work. MC will give them a crash course, but the best way to understand the donut is to eat the donut! And so begins our donut-making mini game. By deciding on what flavour of donut MC serves to their customer, the player will unlock different reactions (we recommend giving them a bad donut once in a while 😉) AND in some cases determine the ending they would get. 

And when we say different reactions, we mean different! Sometimes the donut reactions follow a certain theme, and sometimes the characters just go off the rails and give us ten different life stories. Take for example Adam here, who goes all out. (Don’t worry, we made sure to add chapters on the video because he’s a little chatterbox!) 

The Various Ways to Win a Customer’s Heart

You might have noticed that Adam asks for any type of donut, letting the player decide which flavour to go with, whether to serve one of the donuts on the menu or just follow their hearts. This is an example of a freestyle order. There are no right or wrong answers here (except maybe a burnt donut). Why don’t you try giving them different flavours to see what they’ll say? 

Here’s a bit of a challenge! Detective Fox is a hardboiled detective who drops by San Mazo in search of the Donut Thief. He likes to add a bit of spice to his orders by turning them into riddles, giving the MC clues but not saying the recipe name outright. There are some characters who like to do this, so if you want a bit of a challenge, Detective Fox, Lucy and Zoey the Gamer Girl are some of the customers you should look out for! 

But not to worry, you can always ask the customer to Clarify their order. No need to memorise the recipe list! 

And sometimes, the customer doesn’t know what to do and lets MC decide. This choice has a pretty deep impact on Emmette’s arc… to go or not to go, that is the question. Should Emmette go see her favorite musical, or focus on the upcoming cheerleading nationals?

Now that we’ve got their orders sorted out… It's time for the actual donut itself. 

The Parts of a Donut 

Once you’re in the donut-making groove, you’ll notice that the orders will have a lot more variety. Customers aren’t always in the mood for donuts on the menu and would ask for specific flavours or toppings instead. They might even ask to replace or remove elements on an existing recipe (which we classify as modified recipe orders). On the screenshot above, Ainsley is asking for something pink, which is one of our ingredient ‘tags’. 

This time Kolt gives us some wiggle room, asking for a taste profile that comprises both Matcha and Chocolate. Those are two different moods, so you can look forward to his different reactions! 

By the way, the donut will take on all of the tags associated with each ingredient, so if Kolt asks for something Bitter and Green, only Matcha will qualify! 

This doesn’t look right…

Hotbox customers also notice if MC has been skimping out on the ingredients! Here’s a regular Chocolate Factory: 

And here are examples of the things that might ruin a customer’s day: 

Drizzles are a bit complicated, especially donut recipes that ask for a specific design. Try to follow the stencil as much as possible. 

A glaze that’s more than 50% would be a good donut, but if you want to hit ‘perfect’ points, you need to be more generous. No, don’t look at the money being taken from the Hotbox till! 😂

We call these the ‘technical checks’, the little donut details that affect your donut score (‘perfect’ donuts unlock unique dialogue and give higher tips!), and also elicit less than impressed comments from your customers.

Here’s a complete list of the tags we used for the technical checks! The game will prioritise the ones at the bottom, so if your donut has more than one problem, the customer would only mention the most important one. Here’s an example of Sally ordering a donut with multiple elements:

But don’t get overwhelmed with all the technical things! We tried to make customer reactions (even the technical checks) as fun as possible AND all of it is voiced… we’d love it if players tried to experience as much of these reactions as possible! 🤗 Meme the donuts, ragebait your customers! (Or not! Some of them might get really sad.)

You can experience some of the donut reactions in our demo! 

Happy National Donut Day, gang! Have a virtual donut on us! 🍩🍩🍩

Will you start dating your ex again… if it was actually your fault you broke up?

Romance in High Times

We mentioned in our first dev log that High Times was originally pitched as an anti-dating sim. What it was instead was a ‘closure simulator’ where the main character gets reunited with their exes (whether by chance or not) and maybe talks about where things went wrong. 

Here’s another fun fact: 

Our main exes are named after *coughs* dubious substances. This was reflected not only in their designs but also the toxic traits that contributed to their breakup with MC. For example, MJ’s grassy theme is reflected not just in the colour of her hair and her name, but also her lax and almost apathetic personality. You can still see traces of her earlier setting in her first scene where she begs MC to let her stay in MC’s apartment again. After she has failed to pay rent multiple times before! #GirlFailure 😅

We don’t want to make this log super long, but if you’re curious about the other exes and what substance they’re based on, feel free to leave us a comment! 

A new romance

There were only supposed to be five romanceable characters, but the ratio of the waifus to the husbandos were a bit off and we got questions about adding more male options.  There is a very obvious answer to this and actually Connor’s character was written with Yosuke Hanamura and Tomoda (from Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun fame) in mind: we wanted a best friend character who’s always there for you, will do all the tutorials with you, and pretty much be in all the scenes where we need some handholding. 

Did we mention the tension and the ‘why did the protag never date their best friend?’ vibes?

 The problem was, a big part of Connor’s story is his long-distance relationship with Dakota! 🧐

Ensure your Happy Ending

This applies to all characters and not just Connor, but in High Times your dialogue options and donuts both matter when it comes to unlocking the different endings. 

Don’t worry! We threw a few fun ones where you can choose whatever you want (it’s okay, you can still pretend to be Emmette’s favourite LonelyFans creator), but not all questions and orders are created equal. 

Our advice is to follow your heart and flirt with Connor whenever physically possible! Show him who’s boss! 

Spice up your donuts

And if you play your cards right, you’ll be able to spend some spicy time with your favourite (or favourites! They don’t mind sharing 😉) Hard launching your relationship on social media and maybe sending you cute text messages? We also got you covered, so don’t forget to check the Facenook app!  

Chat with your exes (and flirt with Connor) in our demo: 

If you like cozy cafés, messy people, and emotional donuts, don’t forget to wishlist High Times.

Thanks as always for the support, gang! Be honest… who are you falling for first? 👇 

💚 MJ 

💖 Connor

💜 Emmette

💛 Lucy

💓 Stacy

💙 Harry

Hello gang! 

We’ve talked about the story and the features of the game… but let’s talk about the real chaos behind the scenes, things that players usually don’t see (Or at least we hope you don’t get to see as many of them as we do 😅 We see you and thank you, beta testers!)

That’s right! We’re talking about the bugs! 

Behind the scenes at High Times  

As of writing, we have noted down 2,048 confirmed bugs in the game. And that’s only the ones that have already been fixed. We’re currently working on a couple more and have some fixes queued for implementation in the newest build. 

Some of them are pretty hilarious. Just like when we first implemented facial expressions on the player character.

Ideally screenshots or recordings of the bugs need to be included in our bug reports for easy visual confirmation, and we gotta say that the programmers and scripters have made good use of those screenshots. 

Here are some of our favourites that they have shared in the groupchat: 

Arms have a way of being lost or being doubled 🥹

And some elements seem to be missing…?

When things go very wrong

Sometimes it’s an item sprite so large it takes up the whole screen. (And the ID is displayed in the text box for some reason…)

And sometimes… the bug is persistent enough to give our programmers war flashbacks. 

These have all been fixed in the current build (thank you to the programmers, scripters, and animators!) but of course, there are still some new ones we have to deal with, especially since we have added so many features and functions in the full game. They just keep coming… 🙈

Some numbers (don’t ask 😅)

Here are other fun stats while we’re here. As of writing this post, High Times has:

2048 bugs with confirmed fixes

660 social media posts* 

2020 social media post comments*

232 Available achievements (for the completionists out there)

*not counting the social media posts from the Hotbox account 

It’s a lot to keep track of, but at least we have memes and coffee (not sponsored by coffee shop)! 

Get a sneak peek (and hopefully not find any bugs) in our demo: 

If you like cozy cafés, messy people, and emotional donuts, don’t forget to wishlist High Times.

Thanks as always for the support, gang… And tell us, what helps you power through work/projects? 

This time it’s for real: High Times is coming out on Steam on July 23, 2026! We’ve been working on the game since 2019 and have moved the release date back a couple times, but the donut is finally cooking! 🍩 And we’ve been sneakily working on our gameplay trailer for the announcement! Featuring new customers that were not included in the demo (there are 30 characters waiting for your donuts in the game!) and some voices you might not have heard before! 🥳 Are you ready for some donut therapy… or relationship chaos? What excites you most about High Times?

You walk into your café… but something feels different.

The vibe, the colors, the people who show up, it’s all changed.

In High Times, you don’t just serve donuts. You shape your café!

Customizing the Hotbox 

Here’s a feature that isn’t available in the demo: Hotbox decor! We wanted to give players a chance not only to personalise the Hotbox according to their tastes (questionable or otherwise 😅) but also to prioritise the customers that they want to visit more. Some customers like a specific decor more than others and if you place them in the shop, they’ll drop by more frequently*! 

*And believe us when we say you're going to need it because there are so many characters 🥹 We knew we had to let players prioritise their favourites somehow. 

Remember to put up your decor by opening the Homebox app on your tablet!

More items will be added to Hamazon as the game progresses, so keep an eye out for them! Some items that were suggested didn’t make it to the cut, but we are thinking of adding new ones as a DLC in the future, so who knows! (After all, MC also needs some decor to celebrate their love for Kaori.) 

The Hotbox in action 

Aside from the decor, there are certain moments in certain routes where the Hotbox gets a makeover. Depending on your choices, things can go in very different directions. From a cute whale-themed  Hotbox…

… to the flaming pits of hell! 😅

And some ideas don’t come from you. MJ might have a say in all this! And she actually asks which one you want to go with. In the original scene, MJ went with fire because that’s her thing, but then we thought, ‘Hey why can’t she diversify?’ There’s more to MJ than just fire. She’s also passionate about whales! 

But this did mean that our artists had to draw the Hotbox in wildly different states… even the social media posts where MJ announces her concert have different posters. Honestly, I had a hard time keeping track of them (thank you, scripters!)... we might have gotten carried away with the ‘butterfly effect’ choices here, but in the end we hope our commitment to the bit makes for a fun experience!

Get a sneak peak of the Hotbox in our demo! 

If you like cozy cafés, messy people, and emotional donuts, don’t forget to wishlist High Times.

Thanks as always for the support, gang… And tell us: what kind of Hotbox would you create? 

The world of High Times

We’ve got the mood donuts and the Donut Maker, but what about the place where the donuts are made? 

The name of our mood cafe actually comes from *ahem* a term in “grass” culture referring to a small enclosed space where people smoke the green stuff. The Hotbox is a place people go to for their donut high, we thought the name would be appropriate! (This definitely didn’t help the game’s ESRB rating though lol.)

From sci-fi cafe to cozy corner 

The game was initially set in 2069 and earlier studies for the facade of the Hotbox had a more sci-fi vibe. If you notice in the pic above, the colour palette is also more muted and cold compared to the final look. 

You also probably noticed that the final version of the Hotbox is a lot smaller than the initial study… We ended up going with a floor plan that’s closer to Study B. 

A smaller cafe feels a lot more personal, like a place where customers can tell you all about their problems. The study below has the High Times colour palette, but we felt like the sleek modern look and all the space detracted from the cosiness a little bit. Imagine if the Hotbox really made it big though! Maybe Boss can actually afford to hire another person…

Inspired by music 

A big inspiration for the High Times vibe is Lo-fi music (and the aesthetic, of course). We wanted the Hotbox to feel like a cosy diner that remains open even late at night, a place where you can chill if you can’t fall asleep. Even the BGM have that Lo-fi feel. Our music designer composed some super cool Lo-fi beats for the Hotbox jukebox, so feel free to choose your favourite to listen to while making donuts!

But what’s happening outside? 

We looked at a couple of cities to serve as an inspiration for San Mazo. There’s California, the  proverbial melting pot of cuisines and where the people are larger than life. San Mazopalooza, despite the name, also has big C*achella vibes. But since we live in the Philippines, we couldn’t resist adding a bit of Filipino flavour to San Mazo as well. After all, Manila has all the parties and good cheer, despite the hours-long traffic jams and the floods. 

‘But wait,’ you might say. ‘The main character never leaves the Hotbox, though? What was the point of making up all that San Mazo flavour?’ 

And you would be right! Our MC is a workaholic, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t do a bit of worldbuilding through the dialogue and social media. After all, we already have some influencers and streamers as regular customers. Even if MC never touches grass, we could at least show off some of the things happening in town via social media.

And we wrote a lot of social media posts (and so many comments on those social media posts lol, we really went ham there). The posts also had photos. And the people commenting had their own profile pictures… The Facenook app started giving the programmers a lot of grief because of the sheer amount of posts that get posted each day. But hey, this is important to the worldbuilding, you know! 

You can get a small taste of San Mazo and our infamous Facenook posts in our demo! 

And as always…

If you like cozy cafés, messy people, and emotional donuts, don’t forget to wishlist High Times.

Thank you gang for your support!

What is High Times about?

Now that we’re getting closer to the release date, we figured we’d talk about the highs and lows of developing High Times and how this café came to life.

For those discovering the game now: High Times is a narrative donut-making game where you help customers process their emotions… one donut at a time.

But the story actually started somewhere else.

It all started with the characters

The game actually started with the characters! Our artist showed us some of the character designs he was working on and we loved it so much we basically tried to build a story that would do his colorful and whacky designs justice. 

It took many long hours of brainstorming, but we finally decided on a cast of toxic exes who all started dropping by your donut shop looking for some sort of closure or revenge. 

As development went forward, the ideas changed and we tweaked the characters a bit. What used to be a closure-simulator became what it is now: a donut-making sim about helping people figure out their emotions and maybe giving failed relationships a second chance (romantic or otherwise). 

From anti-dating sim to… dating sim

Like we mentioned above, High Times wasn’t actually meant to be a dating sim. In fact, the words ‘anti-dating sim’ have been thrown around in the office for a while. But in the end, the dating sim fans inside us won out. After all, all of the exes already have a good and a bad end… Adding a romance option can only be a plus, right? 

The donut system

So we’ve got the characters sorted out and spent many an hour making sure their routes made sense, but the actual donut-making was a whole ‘nother ball game. And right before we actually got the ball rolling, 2020 happened. 

That didn’t halt production and we worked on a system that would allow everyone to work from home (a system that’s still in place today), but we have to admit that the lockdowns and general insecurity about the state of the world hadn’t been good for morale. 

The donut-making system was more complex and particular than we had expected and at the time, we doubt most of the world was in the mood for complex and particular problems.  But we managed. With lots of coffee and donuts and bug fixing. The mood-enhancing mechanic, which had been simpler and more random before, slowly became more integrated into the story. 

Routes and relationships could change depending on the donut you serve. The characters have specific reactions to elements they liked and didn’t like… It took a while getting there, but the donuts and mood enhancers have become an essential part of the characters’ stories instead of being a separate element that’s only meant to farm relationship points. We’re quite happy with how it turned out. 

A long journey

It’s been quite a few years since we started working on High Times (how could it be 2026 already?!) and it has changed so much from what we envisioned back in 2020!

This game could have been an okay donut-making sim with visual novel elements, but we’re glad we decided to take the time to make sure all of the elements on the donut complement each other, so to speak. 

We’ll be talking more about how we worked on the game in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! Comment with anything you want to know about the game and our process and we'd do our best to reply or write a long post about the topic!

And… if you like narrative games, donut cafés, and messy relationships, don’t forget to wishlist High Times on Steam!

Dear Mood Confectioners,

We’ve brought High Times and Spirit Rancher to PAX East! 🎉

It’s our first time showcasing at a US convention, and we want to thank everyone who dropped by the past two days to play our games. The reception has been incredibly positive; it definitely made all the visa stress, jetlag and JFK interrogation worth it, lol!

We’ll be here until Sunday, March 29, from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM, so if you want to hang out + make virtual donuts/catch some spirits, we’re at Booth 10050! We're also giving away High Times merch for those who play the demo and wishlist the game on Steam. 💛

Release Timeframe

We also wanted to share a quick update regarding the release timeframe for High Times.

Our Steam page currently lists Q1 2026, and with Q1 coming to a close, we want to clarify that the game will no longer be releasing within that timeframe. 😢 We’re now targeting a release sometime in Q2 2026. The release date was updated internally already, though it's taking some time to reflect publicly for some reason (we might need to contact Steam support if it still doesn't get updated in the next few days...)

We know some of you noticed the Q1 2026 window and have been asking about it. We understand the frustration and we really appreciate the excitement! We're also eager (and very anxious!) to bring the game to you guys. And while we do have a more specific release date that we’ve shared privately with our Kickstarter backers, unfortunately, we’re not quite ready to announce it publicly just yet. Once we are, we’ll be sure to share it here in our Steam news page. 💛

Right now, our focus is on making sure the game is fully polished and as bug free as possible. We're also exploring the possibility of a console sim-ship (Nintendo Switch/Playstation/Xbox) to give the game the strongest launch momentum as possible.

Thank you so much everyone for your continued support as we ride out the last months of development hell! Please extend us a little bit more patience as we hammer this out. 🙏 Regardless of what happens, 2026 is the year of High Times for sure! 🍩✨

Dear Mood Confectioners,

We've updated our demo in celebration of Steam Next Fest! 🎉

If you’ve played the previous version, this build brings new flavor to the same 8 days, but now with layered events and app triggers that change how the scenes unfold. Our new demo comes with more features, drama, and ways to stir up your favorite Hotbox regulars. 🍩✨

What’s New?

• Expanded Story Scenes:

  • New story scenes with Kolt, Ainsley and Dexie.

• New Phone Features:

  • Facenook App – a social feed where players can catch a glimpse of what’s happening around San Mazo. Characters also occasionally post status updates or leave comments.

  • Messenger App - a messaging app where characters reach out to the player whenever they're not around. These texts provide additional relationship points and help build emotional continuity outside the Hotbox.

  • Tender App – a relationship tracker that allows players to monitor their affection levels with the customers. It also shows how many points are needed to unlock the next story scene.

  • Hamazon App – an in-game shop where players can purchase ingredients, tools, and other upgrades for the Hotbox. These items can affect gameplay mechanics and unlock optional content.

  • Save/Load - players can now save their progress every end of day.

  • Expanded Options - added flexibility in how players interact with the game: volume, screen settings, text speed, debug menu, and other quality-of-life improvements are now accessible.

  • Expanded MC Customization - added new hairstyles, alternate outfit and facial options to give players more ways to personalize their main character.

We hope you like the new updated demo of High Times! Please leave us a review and wishlist the game to help us rise through the ranks during Steam Next Fest!

Thank you so much, gang! ːamyhappyː

New Customers!

• Nova - a punk-ass skateboarder by night, a mysterious graffiti artist by... even later night (in collaboration with Sad Panda Studios)
• Detective Fox - a hardboiled detective solving the hardboiled case of the 'Donut Thief'

Our Progress So Far:

• Total Backers: 670 (close to 1pt - 700 backers)
• Total KS Update Likes: 344 (close to 1pt - 400 likes)
• KS Comments (includes updates): 152 (close to 2pts - 200 comments)
• Steam Wishlists: 963 (since campaign started; needs 1500 for 2 pts)
• Steam Demo Review: 19 (needs 50 for 1pt)
• Discord Members: 1,510 (needs 1700 for 1pt)
• Tiktok Followers: 100 (needs 200 for 2pts)
• Facebook Shares: 46 (needs 100 for 1pt)
• X/Twitter Reposts: 164 (needs 250 for 2pts)

• Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/yangyangmobile
• Repost on X/Twitter: https://x.com/yangyangmobile/status/1848788215224013299
• Share on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yangyangmobile/videos/2584888761875034
• Follow us on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@yangyangmobile
• Support our Kickstarter as a Panda Army: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/yangyangmobile/high-times?ref=5xpott
• Leave a Demo Review on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3221840

High Times x Crush Crush Giveaway!

• Follow Crush Crush on X/Twitter (+1 entry)
• Wishlist High Times on Steam (+1 entry - must screenshot and show proof in the Twitter comments)
• Support High Times on Kickstarter (+2 entries - all of our backers are automatically eligible for this, just show proof in the Twitter comments)

Steam Cooking Fest

Fixed Bugs

• Fixed a game breaking issue wherein some users get stuck and can't use the glaze cup
• Fixed a game breaking issue wherein some users get stuck at "..." during Lucky's note

Known Bugs

• Customer does not recognize Yin-Yang - currently fixing this
• Connor's four arms - currently fixing this
• Backlog sometimes not disappearing - pending fix (need more details)
• Several missing voiced lines (singing parts) - haven't recorded them yet. Will be added in future updates!