High Times is an upcoming dating and cooking sim developed by Philippine developer, Yangyang Mobile. Backed by a talented team of voice actors including Johnny Yong Bosch and LilyPichu, High Times promises to be an upbeat, humorous, and contemplative experience when it launches in May of 2026. I (Brendan) was lucky enough to have the chance to both play a demo of High Times and to interview Carlos, the lead writer, about the project.

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Brendan: This is Brendan from Boss Rush Network. I’m here with Carlos from Yangyang Mobile, who is the lead writer of High Times. You’re here all the way from the Philippines?

Carlos: Wow, yeah. I just came from a 15 hour flight yesterday. It has been fun, though. I’m loving Boston so far, [it’s] such a beautiful city. [I’m] loving PAX East as well.

Brendan: Great, is this your first time here at PAX East then?

Carlos: Yes, it is our first time here proudly, and yeah, we’re super excited to be here.

Brendan: Okay, yeah, mine too, actually. This is the first real demo and interview I’ve gotten to take part in during my time here so I’m honestly a bit nervous [laughs]. The demo was a lot of fun!

Carlos: Absolutely honored to hear it.

Brendan: So, can you tell me a bit about High Times as a project? Where did some of the inspiration come from? We had talked a bit prior to this interview, and you seemed very transparent about VA-11 Hall-A having served as a big influence.

Carlos: Sure, so a lot of our games are visual novels; we’ve made horror visual novels, [and] we’ve made dating sims in the past. We love using visual novels as a base, and then we like layering little gameplay mechanics on top of it. Just to shake things up, right? So, with this concept, we gravitated towards VA-11 Hall-A because we were thinking it would be cool to have business management elements. You have to keep track of how much money you make, and you have to keep track of buying extra ingredients–stuff like that. And so, we looked at VA-11 Hall-A and said, oh, yeah, that’s a game where you’re basically behind a counter and you’re meeting all of these really interesting characters. We love VA-11 Hall-A. VA-11 Hall-A is such a popular game though, and we needed to think about ways to, of course, innovate, to make ourselves stand out.

Brendan: Sure, it’s always important to distinguish your work from its inspirations. How did you approach this for High Times? How were donuts decided on as a similar mechanic to the cocktails in VA-11 Hall-A?

Carlos: The first step was: what if we made the tone something more quirky? We started by making these larger-than-life characters like this rocker girl who’s always setting things on fire, a NSFW artist, and so on. It really started with the conception of these characters, but then the next question was what unique gameplay element do we want to include? We thought of how VA-11 Hall-A used cocktails as interesting mechanic which quickly had us thinking of other foods. We experimented with several ideas, at one point even asking ourselves, what if we do drinks as well? But then we realized there is something visceral in making a pastry, particularly a donut, right?

Brendan: Yeah, it’s messy work, I can already see the appeal there [laughs].

Carlos: Right, it’s messy! We started thinking of games like Papa’s Donuteria and Cooking Mama and found that the act of baking the donuts, putting the glaze on, adding little toppings here and there, it’s just fun. And so because of that, we decided to experiment and sort of dig into that as a gameplay element. Also, the most important thing is we just like donuts. It’s as simple as that. We just like donuts [laughs].

Brendan: Honestly, who doesn’t love donuts [laughs]? As I quickly learned through the demo though, these aren’t just ordinary donuts being served.

Carlos: Right, these are not normal donuts you’re making. So, High Times takes place in the near future, and there’s a new type of confection referred to as mood enhancers. The donuts served are these mood enhancers, so they taste delicious while also getting people to feel different emotions, right? That’s why it’s called High Times. You know, you’re high on the donut taste, right? So, each flavor has a different emotion attached to it. Vanilla gives you cheer, blueberry gives you sincerity, chocolate gives you focus, and so on.

Brendan: It’s an interesting concept, having that much control over someone’s mood just by baking and creating these confections for them.

Carlos: Right, we thought of the player character almost as a sort of bartender. Someone could come in needing a boost in happiness, confidence, or maybe just needs to calm down a bit; it is up to the player to decide what they want to serve each character, either based on what seems appropriate or based on what reaction they want to see from that character.

At the start of the game, we sort of take it easy on the player. Characters will be more overt with what they want, but what we’re excited about is the increasing difficulty later in the game. Characters will come in not knowing what they want, and it’s up to the player to decide how to respond. There’s a total of nine flavors in the game, with emotions ranging from patience to nostalgia to courage, and you need to decide what each character needs by engaging with and empathizing with them. It’s up to the player to choose the correct donut that might help them get their good ending, as opposed to their bad ending.

Brendan: Okay interesting, so it really falls onto the player to determine the eventual outcome of many of these characters. Regarding the mood enhancement system, I feel like it was alluded to a little bit during the social media segments of the demo that there are (in-game) people who think that being able to manipulate people’s moods is a little problematic. Is that tied into the greater narrative at all?

Carlos: Actually, it’s interesting you brought that up. What’s important to note is that the mood enhancers are not mind control. In the way that a good meal can enrich you and make you feel certain things, the mood enhancers are similar. The donuts are more of a metaphor for certain vices that when taken in moderation can be good for you or are just some harmless fun. High Times is ultimately about empathy; the player can hook each of the characters up with a donut and what you decide to serve them just depends on the player’s relationship with that character. It’s again not too different from like a bartender who pours someone a glass of whiskey to help them gain confidence before they make a tough decision or something, or at least that’s how I look at it. The freedom does reside with the player though.

Brendan: Absolutely, that makes sense to me. Regarding the characters, what really stood out to me, outside of the writing, was the quality of the voice acting. I would love to know more about the process for getting these talents involved in your game, I mean we are talking about some renowned talents such as Johnny Yong Bosch and LilyPichu.

Carlos: I don’t know [laughs]. We’re just really lucky, because these are such great voice actors. We work with Sound Cadence, and they auditioned, and so it was great. We are just super honored to have them.

Brendan: Well I’m very excited for you guys and I’m really looking forward to playing the full game!

Carlos: Thank you, we’re releasing the full game on PC in May, so that’s super exciting!

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High Times promises to be a quirky, creative, and thoughtful experience made by small group of incredibly passionate and friendly creatives. I personally can’t wait to play the full game when it launches in May, and I ask that any other fans of visuals novels, dating sims, or just loving crafted indie titles in general keep an eye out on this title as well!

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Featured Image: Yangyang Mobile