An unfamiliar High Times

You see the familiar kitchen layout but what’s this? The donut looks different… even the names are different. That’s right! It’s High Times before we removed all the drug jokes. The flavour and topping names used to drug puns. We’re pretty fond of ‘Chococaine’ and ‘Matchajuana’. 

We did have to change everything to avoid getting slapped with an M rating, but here’s a fun fact: we actually still use the original drug names in the code 😂 So a customer might ask for a passion donut, but internally it’s all about that ‘ContainsFlavor()==ubecstacy’. 

It’s in the details

The High Times logo was also changed. The pill on the top of the donut has been changed into a star. What do you think of this change? 

Of course, we didn’t have to change everything. The Hotbox, which is a slang for an air-tight room where people can smoke weed, remained as the name of our beloved mood cafe. (Fun fact: the YYM discord server’s voice chat is also called #The-Hotbox!) 

And of course, there’s our main characters! 

Based on drugs

A lot of people were curious about the lore behind the main characters’ names so here we go (shoutout to The Lemon Lord on Steam for getting all the correct answers!)

MJ Hayes = Marijuana 

Her full name is Mary Jane Hayes, what else do we need to say? 😂 Her green hair is also meant to evoke weed. 

Aside from the obvious, we also wanted their names and personalities to match. Remember when High Times was originally a closure simulator? Well, part of the story was exploring the toxic trait of each ex that led to their breakup. By the way, we’re not saying MC is completely innocent in this: the final boss is figuring out what drove MC to pretty much ghost the people they cared about and avoid making real connections with them. 

In MJ’s case, she was originally set to be a girl failure who flakes out on band practice out of apathy. We’re not saying this is a common thing with people who smoke weed, of course, but since we wanted to explore toxic traits we considered the negative things associated with each drug. 

Emmette Meine = methamphetamine 

Emmette is methamphetamine! You can still see some of her original setting in how she likes Focus donuts: she likes to be highly focused and alert. But meth also causes a feeling of euphoria. This was changed in the final game but Emmette and MC’s relationship used to be one of co-dependence: Emmette where she needs someone to pamper and take care of, while MC needed the pampering due to problems with their home life. 

In fact, an earlier outline of Emmette’s story had MC dropping her like a hot potato once their personal problems started calming down… Not a very good look for MC, is it? 🥹 Maybe changing the story was for the best. 

Lucy Dee = LSD

Her name references the street name for the drug. Don’t let Lucy’s colourful design and her energy fool you: her older design had her playing some mean pranks on MC and the Hotbox in revenge for MC ghosting her when they were kids! What can we say? Lucy took her Grudge Note seriously. Back then, she was the fun childhood friend who took things too far without thinking much about it–a far cry from the final version of her, who tends to overthink 🥹

What remained unchanged is that Lucy and MC go way back: the two of them didn’t have a lot of friends back in grade school. 

Harry Yen = heroin

Just like meth, heroin has euphoric effects. And there are also a few more similarities between her and Harry. That is, in their initial concept and before we finalised their stories 😅 Harry started dating MC in college, but got ghosted when MC’s home life took a turn for the worse. And similarly to Emmette, there’s a sense of co-dependency between MC and Harry, except this time there’s rivalry added to the mix. The two of them are bakers and Harry is a very competitive person. 

The rivalry between Harry and MC mellowed out a lot in the final draft, but the sparks definitely stayed! 😌 

Stacy Ortiz = Ecstasy

Stacy is the one-night stand, the summer fling who popped back in MC’s life bringing her own baggage and drama. She’s a bit of a party girl too; it takes a certain type of person to keep up with Stacy’s energy, exactly like the drug she was named after. Her story more or less remained intact from the initial conception aside from minor tweaks here and there! There’s really nothing like the soap opera type of influencer drama when you’re just watching from the sidelines! 

What do you think, gang? Which relationship do you think is the most spicy? 

💚 MJ 

💙 Emmette

💛 Lucy

💜 Stacy

🤎 Harry

In most dating sims, you meet people for the first time.

In High Times? Things are not that easy!

Your MC already has history with the people they’ll meet… and maybe even some unresolved feelings.

Since your character comes with emotional baggage, we wanted players to have full control of how the MC looks!

Building the Main Character

There’s a risk in having a main character who already has some existing baggage with the main cast: not only has MC dated a bunch of different people before the game has started, but they’re also partly at fault for those relationships having failed in the first place. 

For one thing, we’re asking people to believe that the player character has dated characters that they (player) would be meeting for the first time. Having a balance between the old bonds between those characters and how they interact with each other in the present is important. We don’t want players to feel like they’re only hearing one half of the conversation!

Here’s a tiny preview of Emmette trying to be honest: \[[url="https://soundcloud.com/yangyang-mobile-853375689/emmette-romance" style="pill"]link goes to Soundcloud[/url]]

And of course, we’re also asking the player to be fine with having no control over the MC’s past and the people they have dated. You’ll be able to choose whom to date in the actual game (and it’s fine not to date anyone at all), but MC’s past has already been solidified. This isn’t gonna be everyone’s cup of tea but we’re glad that people seem to be open to the idea. Maybe this might not be a good idea in the long run, but who hasn’t ever thought about getting back with their ex? 🥹

tl;dr: MC is a bit messy, but we hope you don’t hold that against them 🥹

Customising the Main Character

Since your character already has backstory, we wanted them to still feel yours 🥹 We’ve come a long way from the character creation menu pictured above. Not only do we have more colour options and added a couple more body types, but we even added options to change MC’s Hotbox uniform. 

We asked our Kickstarter backers to vote on which Hotbox uniform options people wanted to see in the game. The set that won has been added to MC’s choices! Maybe a donut floater option in a future DLC? 🥹🤲 

(We also ran this poll on Patreon[www.patreon.com] for those who are interested!)

Customise your MC in our demo! (Feel free to show off and tag us on social media as well, we love all the MCs)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2251220/High_Times__DatingCooking_Sim/

If you like cozy cafés, messy people, and emotional donuts, don’t forget to wishlist High Times.

Thanks as always for the support, gang… And tell us: what’s more important to you in dating sims:

👀 character customisation

💘 romance

💥 messy drama