Imagine a world where, instead of coffee or alcohol, the hot new controlled substance is the mood-altering chemical compounds in various donut ingredients. Now imagine this world is full of cute anime people constantly drifting through your donut shop to chat, flirt, and have their emotions temporarily altered by frosting, sprinkles, and dough. That’s the world of High Times, an upcoming visual novel dating game from Filipino studio Yangyang Mobile that’s due out this May.
At PAX East 2026, Yangyang’s colorful and splashy booth showcased both High Times and Spirit Rancher, a sort of fusion between Stardew Valley and Pokémon. In my time playing the High Times demo (now available on Steam), I was struck by both its inherent charm — and its horniness. High Times is inspired by similar visual novel dating games where you play as a vendor, like VA-11 Hall-A, but the tone and aesthetics are very Scott Pilgrim, complete with a league of not-so-evil exes with bright hair of every color.
Your fully customizable Mood Confectioner works at The Hotbox, a new donut shop licensed to sell mood-enhancing donuts. Chatter from early customers indicates that this is a relatively new phenomenon in this near-future world, so you get a mix of skeptics and donut-curious folks wandering through. More importantly, your public-facing job gives you a chance to reconnect with your various charming exes.
In my time playing, I was able to flirt with basically every character that walked through the door — except the really depressed guy with five o’clock shadow who needed some cheering up. The fact that everybody was fully-voiced made things that much more engaging. Flirting with every person isn’t a necessity, but the game established your character as canonically bisexual. As a young man named “Khorri” with neon blue hair, I reconnected with my wild punk rocker ex-girlfriend MJ Hayes (Nola Klop), caffeine-obsessed cheerleading sensation Emmette Meine (Ciarán Strange), and Mood Confectioner rival Harry Yen (Johnny Yong Bosch).
As a Mood Confectioner, you’re getting paid to make and sell donuts and also serve as an amateur therapist. Donut flavors have different effects beyond simply making people happy. Blueberry makes them more sincere and chocolate makes them more focused, whereas white berry makes them open up about their true feelings. You can use these to your advantage in terms of the romance, but you’re meant to talk to these people about their problems, offering advice and mood enhancements accordingly. Sometimes, that means giving them something they didn’t even ask for, because you know it will be good for them.
