At PAX East 2026, we saw a ton of interesting games and technology that gamers all around the world can look forward to within the coming years. On our final day of PAX, we met with Carlos Valdez, the Lead Designer for High Times, and a developer at Yang Yang Entertainment. After playing the demo, Carlos was more than excited to tell us about the game and give us an exclusive interview.
Below, you can watch the interview with Carlos Valdez; however, we have transcribed the interview to make it easy to read and to help clarify some spots that can be difficult to hear.
Carlos: Hello There
Matt: Hello, I am Matt Kowalski with Niche Gamer; it is very nice to meet you.
Carlos Valdez: Nice to meet you, too.
Matt: Can you introduce yourself to people who do not know you?
Carlos: So my name is Carlos Valdez. I’m one of the devs of Yang Yang Entertainment, and we’re here at PAX showcasing High Times.
Matt: So, how’s the reception been overall?
Carlos: Amazing. So glad to be here at PAX East. So we make visual novels and narrative video games, and we’ve always felt it to be more of a niche genre, but here you wouldn’t be able to tell because people are just coming in, talking about it, and all the interest they’re showing in our games. So it’s been amazing just talking to people who really love the visual novels, novel sim genre. So it’s been great.
Matt: Now, with this game, what inspired it? You were just talking earlier about how Valhalla and Coffee Talk inspired it. Can you give me more insight?
Carlos: So High Times is actually our fifth game. So we have other visual novels. Let’s say two horror visual novels. We have other dating sims, stuff like that, and whenever we make a game, we always try to think of more ways to incorporate more mechanics in it, just because in this day and age, it’s always cool to have a bit of stuff to sort of mix things up in between, you know, interacting with the characters, in between the reading, right?
So we looked around at different genres, and we were thinking what could possibly be a good mechanic to use, and again, that’s when we discovered we’ve always been fans of Valhalla. I think it’s a great game. So seeing their bar-tending simulator, we were like, “Okay, let’s try something like that.” And again, looking around a bit more about that genre, we saw someone did it for coffee, and they did it for alcohol. So we wanted to find our own niche in this genre, and we decided to go with donuts.
Two very important reasons why. First one is that, you know, those old flash games where you put together donuts or even the, like Cooking Mama, Papa’s Donuteria; there’s just something visceral about putting something as colorful as a donut into line where you put the glaze, and you put on sprinkles. And our second one is because we just really like donuts. So that’s it.
Matt: I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game Freshly Frosted.
Carlos: No, I have not.
Matt: How do I explain it? You create conveyor belts to make different donuts, almost like you’re making a donut factory, but it gets more intricate as you go.
Carlos: Donut Factorio. I should check that out. I like Factorio.
Matt: So in the demo, we got to see different characters that we got to experience, obviously, I think there were like eight characters. If I remember correctly?
Carlos: Yeah, around that in the demo, yeah.
Matt: So, can you give us more insight on what inspired those characters, and who’s your favorite out of all of them?
Carlos: Oh, okay. The second one’s tough, but okay. So the inspiration for our characters is this game, right? It takes place in the near future, right? So a lot of the characters are sort of inspired by modern archetypes, right? So you got like a rocker, punk rocker girl who likes setting things on fire, larger than life. You got a dancer, influencer, you got an NSFW artist, right? So there’s, uh, just a wide cast of characters. So we were basically inspired by a lot of modern trends and modern types of people, friends that you might know yourself, right?
Which is great because on some of our other games, we’re sometimes in the past, right? But this one, you can really just have modern people. And next, we were thinking about the types of characters we wanted for the game. So colorful behind the art style. Well, you saw the art style, right? So we wanted characters who came in and were really quirky and zany and funny, right? Characters who would make you laugh, but also, in the long run, in the long game, you know, also make you feel emotional. Like, ha ha, this character is like this, but what are they really about?
So the longer you spend time with them, the more you’ll get attached, the more you’ll be invested in their problems, right? So I think that was one of the core goals for that game, these characters. Wacky at first meet, and by the end, maybe hopefully, fingers crossed, you are tearing up feeling for them, right?
The second one. My favorite. It’s really hard to choose as the head writer for the game. So I know this is a cop-out answer, but I’m just gonna choose. I like the girl in the chicken suit, just because she’s a girl in the chicken suit, and it’s my favorite.
Matt: That’s fair. [laughing]
Matt: What’s horrible is I was looking at the characters, and they are reminiscent of multiple exes I’ve had.
Carlos: Ah, yes. Yeah. You know what? That’s a good thing. I think that’s a feature. So actually, yes, good, you brought it up. So a couple of the characters in the game, in fact, a lot of them are your exes, you know, kind of spinning off, the Scott Pilgrim versus the World. Your exes are all back in town. So yeah, basically, we decided to also not just make it a dating sim, that it’s also a closure with your exes sim, but also it’s a, if you choose to, it’s a get back together with your exes sim because we like that spicy romance, you know what I mean?
Matt: Or in between friendship and just hanging out.
Carlos: Exactly, yeah.
Matt: Now, you mentioned Scott Pilgrim. Scott Pilgrim‘s known for their pop culture references from the manga, anime, and movie. Even playing the demo, you can see some different pop cultural references, such as Black Jack, Donkey Monkey, and more. Which one is your favorite?
Carlos: FaceNook. We had so much fun with the social media stuff. Like it’s not Fa- it’s not Amazon.
Matt: No, you’re good. I was gonna say what’s been like kind of inspiration of where you want to put the pop culture references in, and is there any that were not in the demo that you think will get somebody to go Oh! HaHa!
Carlos: I mean, yeah, for us, we’re painting a world that’s very similar to ours, so it just makes sense that people mention movies or stores, right? There’s no Starbucks, it’s Starducks. Of course, there it was, a duck, right? So, it’ll pop up a lot because people just talk about, you know, media, and talk about institutions a lot. However, so you asked me for like stuff that people will go, “Aha.” There is. I think one of my favorites is that, yes, there is a JoJo reference. So, yeah.
Matt: What season of JoJo is it from?
Carlos: All of them. Yeah. Jo-Jo’s shocking track basically. So basically, uh, there, there’s a whole… There’s one character, I won’t spoil who, who’s a huge JoJo fan.
Matt: Connor asked about anime.
Carlos: Oh, Connor does like anime, but the spoilers, it’s not actually Connor. But anime is a big thing. A lot of them are anime fans. You might have met some of them already. And so, yeah, uh, one of them is a big JoJo fan. Really big JoJo fan. Very much obsessed with JoJo. I mean, again, it’s totally not Jo– It’s Joan. Yeah. Exciting things like that. So those were really fun to write, really funny stuff.
Matt: Now, I’m assuming you’re a JoJo fan.
Carlos: Uh, yes, yes.
Matt: What do you think of JoJo: Steel Ball Run?
Carlos: So, so sorry. I have not watched it yet. It’s been so busy trying to get ready. Again, this game is releasing in May. I have not had the time, but I will watch it once I do, and I will let you know what I think. I am excited for it, though.
Matt: Now, will the game have controller support?
Carlos: Oh, controller support. Yes, I believe so. It will also be out not just on Steam, but also for the Switch, so we’re excited for that as well.
Matt: Now, how was working with the Nintendo group and porting the game to the Nintendo Switch 2?
Carlos: So we’re still working with them now, actually. That’s why we’re still finalizing things, seeing if we can make it, seeing how early we can get it. It’s been great. Again, I’m glad that Nintendo trusted us with being able to port the game to Switch. Our previous games have also had Switch releases, just because I think the Switch is such a great console for indie games, especially for visual novels. So honestly, not just this game, but moving forward, we want all our games to be released on Switch because it’s such a good console for that sort of stuff. So, yeah.
Matt: All right. Now, what’s a future project you wanna work on?
Carlos: I wanna work with, or we wanna work with?
We revealed it here, so we can reveal it now. So, High Times is releasing in May. So what’s up for us next? We have our new project, Spirit Rancher, still super early on in development. We’re showing it to you, however, at PAX, just because, why not? And we have an early build out, but the demo’s not even out online yet.
So it’s called Spirit Rancher, as you can see here from the art. It is a farming sim, so this is our most ambitious game yet. It’s going to have some combat, some life sim stuff, and of course, it’ll still have our good old visual novel narratives. Basically, it’s like a farming sim, but instead of farming crops, you farm spirits. You’re not really a farmer, you’re more of a sage, a spirit shaman. You capture spirits with your magic talismans and take care of them, and by taming them, they produce different resources. So instead of like, for example, planting a potato in the ground, instead of planting a potato in the ground, you capture a potato spirit and, by taking care of it, it will produce potatoes for you. So it’s kind of like creature collection, farming sim, basically.
Matt: My brain immediately thinks of My Neighbor Totoro.
Carlos: Yeah, that was inspiration for this little guy, the potato spirit,… is Totoro. Just– Yeah, there you go. Internally, we call him Potato-toro.
‘Cause why not? Uh, I’m not sure if that copyright can make it to the final game, but we playfully call him Potato-toro.
Matt: Have you seen Ghost Stories?
Carlos: The dub?
Matt: The dub’s a little questionable.
Carlos: The original Ghost Stories. I’ve not seen it. I’ve just seen the meme of the dub. The dub is infamous.
Matt: The dub is infamous, but also a very interesting experience if you’ve ever seen it.
Carlos: I’ve just seen clips that my friend showed me while they were drunk. I’ve not seen it yet.
Matt: It’s definitely a fun, like, get together, drink some beers.
Carlos: I’m sure. Yeah, it does sound wild.
Matt: I don’t know many people who actually finished the original because of how, like, wild it is.
Carlos: Yeah, it’s super ABSURED.
Matt: What is another game that you do wanna work on? Like, either collaboratively or just like concept-wise?
Carlos: Like collaborating with another one. Yeah. Just my personal opinion, I’m down for it. I am game for collaborating with so many people. It’s good. So many cool options for collaborations. Like right now, in High Times, we already did a collaboration with Crush Crush Side Band Studio. Like one of the characters in High Times is from their studio, is from their game, Crush Crush. So fun stuff like that.
As for like future projects that I’d like to work on, again, just personally, I’m a fan of like JRPGs, especially stuff like Claire Obscure and the Persona series. So I suppose if you ask, the dream is to create some narrative that’s like something that’s an epic sprawling story. More visual/narrative elements, visual novel elements, whatever, or just cinematic elements like in Claire Obscure. So those are just projects that we would like to make similar to those. But again, that’s still a bit far off right now. We’re one pixel art, uh, 2D art, but hey, let’s see where we go with it.
Matt: Would you consider a Persona 5 dating sim?
Carlos: Like making a Persona 5? I would love a Persona 5 dating sim! So, actually, like that, that’s another thing, like having a visual novel game in the spirit of a Persona game. Personas are my favorite games. I would love that.
Matt: Now, what about Shin Megami Tensei?
Carlos: So one of the other devs is a Megami Tensei fan, I’m more of a Persona fan. They are more of a Megami Tensei fan, I think. But yeah, for me it’s Persona just because I haven’t played that Shin Megami Tensei, but I’ve heard that it’s good too.
Matt: So I’m a sinner. I have never finished Persona 3 or Persona 4.
Carlos: That’s okay.
Matt: Which should I finish or play through first?
Carlos: Either. They’re all good, so honestly, you can’t go wrong. I mean, Four is being remade; three is already remade, so I don’t think you can go wrong. Yeah. Or I mean, you can wait for the port remake and see how it does. Honestly, whichever you want.
Matt: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Carlos: Thank you. It’s been great.
High Times is in development for Windows PC (via Steam) and will launch sometime this spring. If you want to try the game out now – a demo is available too!
