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For the last little bit I’ve been wanting to get away from games where problems are solved through acts of violence. They’ve been getting a bit tiresome of late, so I’m exploring other avenues in the medium at the moment. Lately, I’ve been playing some Legend of Homebody. This is a game where you stay in your apartment all day trying to make it in one of four professions: visual artist, writer, musician, or programmer.

There are a number of different game modes to choose from that mostly effect how long you play. There’s normal mode where the closest thing to a story happens, followed by increasingly difficult modes where the gameplay is similar but story becomes less of a thing. There are also increasingly long modes for people who want extended sessions. Core activities stay the same in each mode, but they add a bit more color to each playthrough.

At the start of a new game, players must choose between three different characters. First there is Nerdie Zhai who is an aspiring comic book artist / writer. Next, there is Single Shen, a computer programmer who recently quite her job to try and become an independent game developer. Finally, there is Homie Bai who would like to become a music composer; however, he has health problems that land him in the hospital fairly often.

Despite picking different characters, their apartments look exactly the same. The visuals are fine, though. They convey what they need to and there are nice, vibrant colors throughout the game. Music is one simple piece that repeats over and over, however. So definitely consider muting that and playing your own stuff.

What really carries the game is helping these people achieve their goals of becoming successful in their chosen field. The person you choose will impact some of the things that can be done in the game, the people they’ll interact with, as well as the difficulty. Zhai probably has the easiest go of things because he has decent starting money, and it’s easy for him to learn things to up his skills. These translate very nicely into him being able to pick up freelance art jobs online in order to earn money. Shen is medium difficulty because while she can learn new skills easy enough, there isn’t an option to do freelance odd jobs as a programmer. She basically has to develop games on her own, then make them available for sale. If they catch on, though, she’s on easy street for earning money, which is nice. Bai is the most difficult because his health situation means he’s at the hospital a lot instead of working or studying. There’s also the risk that he could suddenly die.

Seeing as these characters are living on their own, they need to worry about things like paying rent, buying food, and their various other bills. Rent is charged at the end of a season (there are no months in the game, just the seasons, and they are 28 days each). Meanwhile, they order all of their food online so it is delivered, reducing their need to leave the apartment. On top of this, they need to pay for most of the classes they can take (there are a few free ones early on). In the case of Shen, she can also choose to hire people to take care of the graphics and music in games she designs. So, there are various bits of personal finance to consider.

Budgeting actually because a big part of the game as a result of this. Players need to be smart about what they buy for food, considering price and how many days before the food goes bad. If they start selling comics, they need to worrying about the costs for warehouse space, and there are even incidentals. Family members can become ill and your character can choose to help pay for medicine, Bai is constantly having to worry about his health, and budgeting for Shen’s games takes a decent amount of consideration. It got to the point in my sessions that I’d welcome days when there were sales at the grocery store and could stock up on cheap food (oddly, food prices fluctuate daily for some reason).

One also needs to keep an eye on various health stats of their chosen character. These include mood, energy (how awake / tired they are), satiety (hunger), hygiene, toilet (for going to the bathroom), and health (general health related to keeping these other stats under control as well as exercising regularly). If these stay too low for too long, they can result in a game over.

=>gemini://pennywhether.xyz/images/Legend-Homebody/Legend-Homebody-2.jpg When your character isn't working to pay rent, they're studying in order to make more money in the future

The actual experience while playing the game will probably hit a little close to home for some people what with the pandemic and all. As far as I can remember, this game was in development from before Covid came along. That being said, its focus on working from home has become rather apropos. It’s a little surprising that loneliness isn’t a stat in the game considering how solitary the lives of its characters are. Sure, they have smartphones for keeping in touch with family, and Shen even dabbles with online dating, but on the whole, these people don’t get a whole lot of social interaction in their lives.

If anything, they’re mostly living fairly toxic, unhealthy “rise and grind” lifestyles. There are basic elements of self-care to keep their mood in a good place like eating specific treats or allocating two hours to indulging in some entertainment. Sure, there’s the option for them to go travel, but then they’re away for days at a time and for as long as a week. Their creativity stats, as well as things like art, writing, music, and programming stats will also go up, but not by enough to justify the time away from the apartment working and studying.

If one chooses to play as Shen, they also get to enjoy her father’s occasional texts pressuring her to go fine a real job and stop being a “parasite” as well. Thankfully, there’s the option to block the guy because holy crap does he get toxic after a while.

People who take a moment to pull themselves away from the stat management and strategy elements of the game will fine a group of people trapped in a pretty ugly spiral of trying to work as hard as they can without dying in the process. Maybe that would explain why they all seem to run a bit long when they’re taking a break to play some video games, and take some truly luxurious 45 minute showers. Maybe they’re doing 10 minutes of washing followed by 35 minutes of crying while they’re in there.

In the end, the game winds up being a strange mix. On the one hand, it’s a casual strategy game about some young people pursuing their dreams. On the other, they’re in a position where everything about their lives feels so tenuous and they need to really bust their behinds in order to keep up with rent and being able to eat. A lot of people play video games to get away from reminders of the real world like this, not plunge headlong into yet more of what they’re trying to escape from.