High Times Review – A Charming Dating Sim Broken by Bugs

High Times is a narrative adventure where you serve up donuts that let customers do more than eat their feelings. The biggest problem is not that your shady mob-connected boss Lucky has left you alone to man the shop, or that your six exes are back in your life for some reason, but how buggy the game is. A fully featured voice cast (minus the protagonist), surprisingly heartfelt if not zany stories, a spectrum of six dateable exes, and an interesting near-future story can’t make up for the fact that my game crashed upwards of fifty times, and I actually think the game broke as it kept repeating the same event for in-game weeks ad nauseam. While you would think the Crush Crush connection would give High Times a leg up as a dating sim, even that element ends up being lackluster as it, too, becomes bugged.

High Times begins in the near future in an America much like the one I know, but somehow, still different. Artificial Intelligence has come and gone, birds have become quite talkative, and an innovation called Mood Enhancers has entered into the same discussion as cannabis, alcohol, video games, and screen time. But besides the mood enhancers, none of that is your concern. You’re simply a person running from your past and making donuts, that is, until all of your exes just happen to be in San Mazo. Maybe you shouldn’t have ghosted every single one of them, but you’re a wiser person now – probably.

High Times places you as a licensed Mood Confectioner in The Hot Box, the hottest box in town. You make donuts and quiz your customers on what they want or need to enhance their donuts with moods like focus-inducing chocolate, destressing matcha, and more. You’ll take up to three donut orders a day from your exes, plus a wide variety of clients you’ll come to know. While the actual gameplay of making donuts is fairly cut and dry, what really makes this game tick is the stories you come across through your customers. While you may expect your best friend, the Vanilla-loving Connor, to frequent your shop and deliver you much-needed coffee, the town of San Mazo seems to be just as lively as its real-life equivalent in California. One minute, you could be taking an order for famous celebrities who come up with the famous webcomic Wolf It Down; the next could present you with a detective accusing you of being the donut-based thief. I’m used to surface-level jokes and pastiches, but the friends you make are fully realized, with Paris coming to terms with the relationship dynamic between him and his girlfriend, or learning the Breadditor’s backstory: how he saw a Post-it note as a kid that inspired him to become terminally online. This game is also very adult, and I don’t mean in terms of graphic violence: sexuality is a core theme, with everything from BDSM to kinks discussed. A streamer asks you if her outfit is too much, talking about how showing more skin has increased viewers and how that seems to deliver a certain expectation. Sally asks if you’re still interested in your ex, as they’re both polyamorous. It gets spicier than that, but I’ll let you decide if a game with donuts called Creampies is worth your while.

Your character isn’t a complete blank slate, and you’ll learn more about your past not just with your exes but also between you and your parents. Though I did not relate to the character on a one-to-one scale, I was able to step into his shoes for the most part, though some of your dialogue choices are fairly sardonic. While I’ve thought these things sometimes as a customer-facing employee in real life, I definitely wouldn’t have said them, as it would’ve caused more trouble than it was worth. There is a good reason why your character acts this way and has ghosted their six exes, and it was quite the journey trying to piece together how you ended up in this dump.

There are only six romance options, one of whom is a trans character, and they’re explored well, but I was taken aback when exes got mad at me for something my character may have done, but I didn’t. I also wish some of the other options in the game were considered, though High Times does actually have plans for characters outside of entering a relationship with you. If you’ve ever wanted to date Johnny Yong Bosch or LilyPichu, this is one of the few ways to do so. The rest of the voice cast delivers great performances with a range of emotions, though I do wish a certain someone would drop their ridiculous accent after their foreshadowed reveal. I wish I could say more about this, but the game seemed to have locked into the same event, resulting in a very long series of cutscenes and a kiss. While I’d consider a nightly smooch a victory in most other circumstances, seemingly having no way to move on from two bugged cutscenes made the moment much more of a headache than anything.

Making donuts is fairly simple, with you listening for clues as to what the client may need or want. If they’re about to make a big decision, blueberry, which carries sincerity, or red velvet, which manifests courage, may be appropriate moods to prescribe. I did find myself getting orders wrong because of vague customer direction, which was especially frustrating when Nova described colors instead of actual toppings or flavors. This isn’t an issue, as “failing” a donut doesn’t ever seem to be game over, and the game will clearly point out when you’re offering a life-changing, canon event donut. You can even ask customers to clarify what they want, which stings a bit, as your exes in particular may chide you for not knowing. Donut making is fairly simple, though putting drizzle on donuts can be frustrating. While I think most people are familiar with coloring inside the lines, I found myself “failing” donuts even by using my finger on my Switch 2 for maximum accuracy. As someone who takes pride in their real-life cooking, it temporarily hurt my ego to get a bad review for one of my donuts. An actual PC mouse may be the way to go, but learning the game just wants drizzle in certain spots is a much easier solution. Even then, I found myself thinking High Times isn’t worth all the trouble.