Our High Times review is for one of the more delightfully strange cozy games of the year: a donut-making dating sim where you play a “donut therapist” at The Hotbox, a shop whose pastries are laced with mood enhancers. Customers wander in carrying their heartbreak, and it’s your job to listen to their stories and bake them exactly the emotion they need — courage, focus, sincerity, cheer, passion — one donut at a time. From Yangyang Mobile, it’s equal parts wholesome, cheeky, and genuinely heartfelt.
This High Times review covers the full release, and the short version is that it delivers on its pitch. The writing has real warmth, the fully-voiced cast is stacked, and the donut loop stayed engaging far longer than we expected. It’s not without friction — the pacing is slow and the romance balance is uneven — but as a cozy place to sink hours into other people’s beautifully messy lives, it hits.
The Loop
One flavor equals one emotion. Listen to a customer’s problem, then craft and serve a donut that nudges how they feel and act. There’s rarely one “right” answer — you have real room to shape the outcome.
Cook donuts, serve orders, collect tips, unlock tools, discover recipes, and decorate your shop. It’s forgiving — you won’t go bankrupt — so the management is texture, not pressure.
The hook that sets it apart: rekindle romance with exes you’ve ghosted. Every dateable character shares a history with your MC, and unpacking it is where the real story lives.
The donuts you serve and the choices you make steer relationships toward multiple endings — some customers have two or three. Over 30 customers and six romanceable characters to untangle.
A Sweet Kind of Therapy
The reason High Times works is its characters. The cast is genuinely interesting and gives the game real originality — every dateable character has a history with your MC that unspools over the course of the game, and those “wait, we have a past?” reveals are consistently the most fun part. Players kept telling on themselves in the best way: “my only regret is that I can’t date every single character,” “I love Zone and Riri,” “I just met Zoey and I’m sad she isn’t an ex to romance.” When a game leaves you wanting to romance the side characters too, the writing is doing its job.
The donut mechanic is smarter than it looks. It’s got enough player autonomy to stay interesting — you can meaningfully influence the story by choosing which mood to serve, and there’s often no single correct donut — without being finicky or punishing. It’s forgiving when you fumble a recipe, and it is very deliberately not a hardcore management sim; you’d have to try to go bankrupt. That’s the right call. The cooking is the rhythm that carries the storytelling, and it never overstays its welcome as a mechanic even when the surrounding loop does.
And the production values are a real cut above for the genre. The game is fully voiced (except the customizable MC) by a stacked cast — Nola Klop, LilyPichu, Johnny Yong Bosch, and dozens more — and the quality shows. Dynamic comic-book-styled visuals bring the story to life across 70+ animated illustrations, and the original soundtrack of rock, city pop, and lo-fi is genuinely good to vibe to during service. It’s cohesive, stylish, and full of personality. Fair warning echoed by basically everyone who played it: this game will make you crave donuts. Keep a box nearby.
What Needs Work
The pacing is slow and grindy. This is the loudest, most consistent criticism, and it’s real. One thorough player logged nearly 15 hours before hitting their first romance ending, and estimated that seeing every ending for all six characters runs toward a staggering ~270 hours — much of it dialogue you’ve already read. It’s a game that rewards patience, and asks for a lot of it.
Repetition sets in. The same customers return asking for the same donuts, and the service loop starts to feel routine. Multiple players admitted to skipping large chunks of dialogue to reach the one or two characters they actually needed to progress a route. The core loop is good, but it leans on repetition to stretch its runtime.
The romance balance is uneven. Several players found the romanceable options skewed — the cast can feel very female-heavy depending on your route, and players specifically seeking male love interests felt underserved, with one noting they were fast-clicking through dialogue that didn’t apply to them. Six romanceable characters is a solid number, but the spread doesn’t land evenly for every player’s preference.
It’s light on personal choice and MC focus. For a game with “Choices Matter” on the tin, some players wanted more meaningful decisions and more scenes centered on the MC. There’s a recurring sense that the story is about everyone else — that your character exists mostly to make donuts and absorb other people’s problems, without much life of their own outside The Hotbox.
The setting rarely leaves the shop. Nearly everything happens inside The Hotbox. A few players wished for more variety — additional random customers to bake for, and scenes set somewhere other than behind the counter — to keep the world feeling larger than one donut shop.
Still being tuned. As a newly-launched game, it’s actively being updated, and players expect it to keep improving as the devs tune pacing and add characters. Some of the above may soften over time — worth keeping in mind if any of these are dealbreakers today.
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good | The Bad | The Ugly |
|---|---|---|
| Characters & WritingThe cast is the heart of it — genuinely interesting, beautifully messy misfits whose shared history with the MC unfolds over time. The heartfelt moments land, the humor is sharp and adult, and it leaves you wanting to romance the side characters too. That’s writing doing its job. | Slow, Grindy Pacing~15 hours to a first romance ending, and completionists face an eye-watering estimate near 270 hours — much of it repeated dialogue. It rewards patience and demands a lot of it. Not a quick, breezy cozy game. | Uneven Romance SpreadSix romanceable characters, but the balance skews depending on your route — players seeking male love interests in particular felt underserved and found themselves clicking past dialogue that didn’t apply. Great if it fits your taste; frustrating if it doesn’t. |
| The Donut LoopSmart, forgiving, and full of autonomy — you meaningfully shape outcomes with the moods you serve, and there’s rarely one right answer. It’s the rhythm that carries the storytelling without ever getting finicky or punishing. | Repetition & SkippingThe same customers ask for the same donuts, and the loop leans on repetition to stretch its length. Enough that players admit to skipping big dialogue chunks to reach the character they actually need. | Thin on MC & ChoiceDespite the “Choices Matter” tag, some players wanted more meaningful decisions and more MC-centered scenes. There’s a lingering sense the story is about everyone else, and your character mostly exists to bake and listen. |
| Production ValuesFully voiced by a stacked cast, 70+ animated comic-book illustrations, and a genuinely great rock / city-pop / lo-fi soundtrack. A real cut above for the genre, and it oozes personality from the first donut. | One-Location WorldAlmost everything happens inside The Hotbox. A little more variety — new customers, scenes beyond the counter — would keep the world from feeling like a single room. | Will Make You Crave DonutsNot a real flaw, but a universal warning from everyone who’s played it: you will want donuts, badly, probably at 9pm. Consider a box of assorted donuts mandatory equipment. |
The Verdict
If you crave wholesome escapism with genuine heart, this cozy sim delivers therapeutic donuts and meaningful connections in spades. That’s our TBB Curator take, and it holds. High Times is cheeky, weird, warm, and wonderfully specific — the kind of game that hits all the boxes it advertises: cozy, dating sim, and an addictive gameplay loop, wrapped in production values most of the genre can’t touch.
The friction is real and worth naming: the pacing is slow, the loop gets repetitive, and the romance balance won’t land evenly for every player. These are the things that keep it from a top-tier score. But they’re the growing pains of an ambitious, big-hearted game that’s still being tuned — not signs of a shallow one. What’s here is genuinely charming, and it clearly sinks its hooks in; the reviews are full of people who “randomly downloaded the demo and got addicted.”
The honest split: if you love visual novels, dating sims, or cozy narrative games with real personality and a killer voice cast, buy it — especially at the $17.99 intro price. The characters are worth the time, the donut loop is a genuine joy, and there’s a lot of heartfelt content to work through.
If you want fast pacing, heavy player agency, or a specific romance spread, go in with clear expectations. Check that your preferred love interests are well-served, and know you’re signing up for a slow burn with a lot of dialogue. If that’s your comfort food, few games do it with this much charm.
Either way, it’s an easy recommendation for the cozy-VN crowd and a promising launch that should only get better as Yangyang Mobile keeps tuning it. Now if you’ll excuse us, we suddenly need to go find a donut.
For more game reviews, check out our full reviews section.
Score Breakdown
