I'd like to thank CrazyPrince for the review key for this title.

These days, working from home has become pretty common, especially since COVID has become a worldwide issue. Even before, many have considered stay-at-home careers, and Legend of Homebody is a semi tongue-in-cheek look at how well an attempt at that might feasibly go, with mixed to positive results.

Legend of Homebody bills itself as a 2-D turn-based simulator where a shut-in (or someone who likes to stay at home) attempts to succeed as an online programmer, artist, writer, or musician. Despite the disclaimer, it is not entirely realistic and liberties were taken in the name of both gameplay and humor, it is otherwise a simulation game about a real-world topic that many actively try to do in real life.

The game has a regular mode, where eating, sleeping, and bathroom breaks are required in-game, and an easy mode where you can just skip that and try for the best score. A few other modes with added or fewer modifiers like ever-increasing expenses are also included. The player can be either one of two male characters or one female protagonist, and then you can play.

In regular mode, you must balance your expenses and personal health as you hone your creative skills with classes and practice. You must turn those skills into actual profit by taking commissions and producing actual content, and you must be able to keep yourself from going bankrupt until the game turn limit ends. In the modes where health is a consideration, you must avoid getting sick, staying well fed, get regular sleep, and keep from being overstressed as well.

The gameplay is very menu-based and requires a lot of foreplanning. There is a bit of a learning curve for new players, so it may take a few tries before you figure out the best way to play. Since the real world does not guarantee everyone will like your work or that you will always make a profit, there is a random chance element, as sometimes you'll get a bunch of fans boosting sales by word of mouth, or you'll get anti-fans badmouthing your work on social media, thus decreasing sales. Much like real life, these events cannot be planned for, and they add a random element to your attempt to succeed as a shut-in creator.

For the modes with real-world limitations like health, there are options, like ordering food, doing exercise, bathing, and even taking a vacation (an ironic option given the theme, but you can even get an achievement for it). The balancing of expenses is also important, especially paying fees to printers and warehouses for copies of your work for sale and distribution as well as the rent and utilities.

Graphically, it's got a colorful if simple-looking design with pleasant on the eyes colors. The user interface isn't overly fancy, but being a menu-driven game, it gets the job done. Sounds and music are nothing special either, but they are easy on the ears if not especially memorable, at least to my ear.

Control is accomplished almost entirely with the mouse, only requiring the use of the keyboard when titling your works. Stability is fine, it should run on modest computers and laptops that meet the low requirements. It's a Windows-only title, but given it's a Unity game, it should be possible to run well in Linux via Proton.

Morally, this is a pretty clean game.

There is no violence or foul language, and sexual content is effectively nil. What few depictions of human characters we do see look tame, wearing pajamas that cover everything.

There is no depiction of the occult or supernatural. You can make generic works with those themes by request, but the game does not force you to, and no elaboration on what they are about is given. For example, an art theme could be "Gods" or "Ghosts", but this is not elaborated on, and you could always title the art something like "False Gods" if you want to do a pro-Christian piece denigrating the concept of other deities or "Holy Ghost" for a Ghosts themed art collage with a Christian theme. You could even do art titled "Real vs. False God" of God pwning Dagon or Baal if you want a "Gods" theme in a Christian appropriate way. Otherwise, there is no specific mention of any religion or real-world theme of any sort of concern. Morally and ethically, you have to take care of your health and being a fruitful creator of whatever work you are skilled in creating for an online audience. These concepts are in no way immoral or offensive.

As a game, I had a little fun, even if it turned into a tedious clickfest after a while, but it is entertaining enough if you like the simulation genre. Morally, there is nothing I found offensive of note, and the asking price is nowhere near unreasonable given the content presented.