There are plenty of games about running cafés, restaurants, and small businesses, but few approach the idea quite like High Times. Instead of simply serving customers, managing ingredients, and chasing profits, Yangyang Mobile’s cosy visual novel and cooking simulation asks a stranger question: what if a donut could fix a broken heart? Set in the colourful city of San Mazo, High Times transforms a humble donut shop into a place where emotions are the main ingredient, turning comfort food into a form of therapy.
Players step into the role of a customisable Mood Confectioner running The Hotbox, a struggling donut shop where every creation can influence how customers feel. Some donuts inspire confidence, others encourage reflection, and some provide the emotional boost needed to help someone overcome a difficult moment. It is a wonderfully unusual concept that immediately gives the familiar cooking simulation formula a much stronger personality.
What makes High Times stand out is its understanding that food has always been connected to memory and emotion. A favourite meal can remind someone of home, a shared dessert can repair a relationship, and a simple act of kindness can sometimes mean more than any grand gesture. While the gameplay itself is fairly relaxed, the emotional focus gives the experience a surprising amount of heart.
Gameplay
High Times blends light restaurant management with visual novel storytelling. Each day, players prepare donuts, serve customers, earn tips, unlock new recipes, upgrade equipment, and customise their growing café. The cooking elements are deliberately approachable rather than complex, emphasising decision-making and customer satisfaction over precision or advanced management skills.
The most interesting part of the gameplay lies in understanding what each customer actually needs. Visitors arrive with personal problems, relationship struggles, anxieties, or emotional baggage, and it is your job to listen carefully before deciding which donut might help them. A customer asking for advice is not always looking for the obvious solution, and choosing the wrong emotional flavour can change how their story develops.
This creates a surprisingly thoughtful loop. Instead of simply matching orders to recipes, you match food to feelings. The game encourages players to pay attention to character dialogue and consider the emotional meaning behind each request, making every customer interaction feel more personal than a standard time-management challenge.
Donut creation itself remains fairly simple, which works in the game’s favour. High Times is not trying to recreate the intensity of a professional kitchen simulator. The relaxed pace allows the narrative and characters to take centre stage, creating an experience that feels more like spending time with friends than managing a stressful business.
As the café grows, players can unlock new ingredients, recipes, tools, and decorations. Customising The Hotbox gives a satisfying sense of ownership, allowing the shop to gradually transform from a struggling business into a welcoming community space. These upgrades may not dramatically change the gameplay, but they provide a pleasant sense of progression throughout the adventure.
The Sweetest Part Is the Story
Where High Times truly shines is in its storytelling. Beneath the colourful presentation and unusual donut mechanics lies a surprisingly grounded exploration of relationships, regret, and moving forward.
The game’s central hook is closure. The protagonist’s past comes back into focus as six former romantic partners re-enter their life, each carrying unresolved feelings and unfinished business. Rather than treating these relationships as simple romance routes, the game explores the complicated emotions that come with old connections, including mistakes, misunderstandings, and the desire to finally find peace.
This gives the narrative a more mature tone than the colourful artwork initially suggests. While there are plenty of humorous moments and quirky characters, the writing often focuses on surprisingly relatable experiences. People make mistakes, friendships change, and sometimes closure does not mean getting back together. Sometimes it simply means understanding what happened and accepting it.
The choices players make throughout the story genuinely matter. The donuts you prepare, the advice you give, and the way you respond in conversations influence relationships and determine which ending you eventually reach. With multiple endings for each romanceable character, there is plenty of incentive to revisit the story and explore different outcomes.
The large cast of customers also adds depth beyond the main romance routes. More than thirty characters visit The Hotbox, each bringing their own personality and problems. Some interactions are brief, while others develop into memorable side stories that reinforce the game’s central message about kindness and emotional understanding.
A Cast Full of Personality
A game built around emotional connections lives or dies by its characters, and thankfully High Times delivers a cast that is easy to become invested in. Each character feels distinct, with their own motivations, personalities, and reasons for visiting the café.
The six romanceable characters are particularly important because they represent different types of relationships and emotional challenges. Rather than simply presenting idealised romance options, the game explores complicated histories and asks whether some connections can truly be repaired.
The writing benefits greatly from the full English voice acting. Featuring performances from talented actors, including Nola Klop, LilyPichu, and Johnny Yong Bosch, the conversations feel more natural and expressive. The voice work brings emotional scenes to life, making important moments land with greater impact.
Not every piece of dialogue reaches the same level, and some interactions occasionally lean into familiar visual novel territory. However, the overall warmth of the cast carries the experience through its weaker moments.
Visuals and Sound
Visually, High Times embraces a vibrant comic-book-inspired style that perfectly suits its unusual premise. The colourful artwork, expressive character designs, and animated illustrations give the game a distinct identity that sets it apart from other cooking and dating simulations.
The comic-panel presentation works particularly well in emotional scenes. Important conversations feel like moments from a graphic novel, with dramatic framing and expressive character reactions adding extra personality. The game’s visual style recognises that the experience is about feelings as much as gameplay.
The soundtrack also deserves recognition. Combining lo-fi beats, city pop influences, and original rock tracks, the music creates a relaxed atmosphere that makes spending time in The Hotbox genuinely enjoyable. Whether preparing donuts during a quiet shift or watching a heartfelt conversation unfold, the soundtrack consistently enhances the mood.
The overall presentation feels polished and carefully considered. Every part of the game, from the café decorations to the character animations, contributes to creating a warm and inviting world.
Where The Recipe Could Improve
Despite its many strengths, High Times has limitations. The biggest issue is that the cooking gameplay rarely moves beyond its initial ideas. While the emotional decision-making remains interesting, the preparation process can start to feel repetitive over extended sessions.
Players expecting a deep restaurant-management experience may also find the systems somewhat lightweight. The café upgrades and customisation options are enjoyable, but they do not fundamentally transform how the business operates. More advanced management mechanics could have added another layer of depth and made the shop feel even more rewarding.
There are also moments when the pacing slows considerably, particularly when the game focuses heavily on dialogue. Visual-novel fans will likely appreciate the slower approach, but players hoping for a more balanced mix of cooking and storytelling may find the experience occasionally uneven.
These issues never completely undermine the experience, though. They simply highlight that High Times is ultimately more interested in emotional storytelling than in complex simulation mechanics.
Verdict
High Times is a wonderfully unusual blend of cooking simulation, visual novel storytelling, and relationship drama, and it succeeds because it has a genuine sense of heart. The idea of using donuts to heal emotional wounds could have easily become a simple gimmick, but the game embraces the concept with surprising sincerity.
Its charming cast, meaningful choices, colourful comic-book presentation, and relaxing café management create an experience that feels refreshingly different. While the gameplay systems are not as deep as some simulation fans may hope for, the emotional storytelling provides the real flavour.
Like the donuts at the centre of its story, High Times is less about complexity and more about comfort. It is a game about second chances, understanding people, and recognising that sometimes the smallest gestures can make the biggest difference.
