As it turns out, Jack, there is a need for a set of garden shears up in the high flats after all. Tiny Eden is set in a near-future version of somewhere in Asia after the bees disappeared. The setting may be Korean in influence, judging by the semi-Hangul-looking alphabet. You are the new resident in an apartment block. With a bit of story setting up your past as a botanist, you start growing plants on your enclosed balcony. Yet if I do that, it is “Oh, Section 6 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.” I might be joking, but it has been asked of me before.

Bajka Games and Digital Vortex Entertainment’s Tiny Eden is the latest of my cozy obsessions. As plain and simple as can be, you are given an apartment to start planting different things. You start by growing strawberries, peas, and a Chinese cabbage called Pak/Pok Chio (Bok Choy in the US), progressively decorating the apartment, growing plants and selling them, unlocking different parts of the building, and maybe vaguely learning a thing or two about a green thumb. As simple as can be, it is a cozy game where you are building up the lobby of the apartment block with the profits from your apartment and rooftop gardening.

The premise on paper is great, albeit a bit slow – plants don’t instantly grow, and you aren’t run off your feet, but there is a sense of keeping on top of things. With each played “day” being a month, you’ll have to manage the health of plants throughout their growing period, from watering, making sure they are getting enough sunlight, and of course, making sure they aren’t too old. In the winter months, you aren’t going to leave plants out on a closed-in balcony that’s cold and windy. Just as you aren’t going to place plants next to a roasting hot heater indoors.

Yet I won’t lie and say I’ve had the smoothest of times with Tiny Eden. Somehow I had broken the game after an update that fixed several things, with several still being finalized. As a result, my save after numerous hours was completely broken. I’m hoping (at the time of writing) that by release on Monday most of these issues are addressed, but I didn’t want to jump in without that being acknowledged.

The gameplay ideas are very simple and very cozy. The type of thing I’ve managed to sit at my desk with a cup of hot chocolate and a book, occasionally leaping from an in-game chair placed in a cozy apartment of my creation to manage the plants and occasionally complete objectives. Yet for all of that, some bits feel drawn out, tiresome, or just a bit “ahh, why are you so slow?” You won’t just get 10-15 hours out of Tiny Eden, probably a lot more, as unlocks and progression are scaled quite heavily in the direction of taking your time.

From the slow bouncing bar mini-game to simply clicking to remove weeds, everything that Tiny Eden does is to get out of your way as much as possible. Where something like Schedule 1 will have you pour the soil, tilt the jar the seed is in, and then have you water the plant, here it is click-and-hold to fill bars to a desired range each time. It is difficult to say that gameplay gets more complex than this, which makes reviewing a bit difficult because there isn’t much to talk about there.

As mentioned, there is a lot of waiting, a lot of looking for things to do, then occasionally you’ve got everything happening at once. Around October or November, you’re looking to manage low temperatures so plants continue to grow. Around February or March, it is about raising temps again. That, matched with plants dying around this time, means that your days (around 16 real-world minutes per day) are almost entirely eaten up by plant care. Somewhat taking away from the goal of completing objectives for the somewhat loose story, which I don’t want to spoil too much because there aren’t new story elements every day.

The objectives start simple, as you would expect: Opening emails to read a bit of the story, going to the roof to pick up the cat, buying this thing to unlock the next bit, and earning $100 through selling things via orders. Those are the main, longer-term progression bits. However, the orders are a lot more focused on your progression as it pertains to gameplay bits. Orders come from store owners in the lobby of the apartment block, and depending on how intensive it is to cook or grow each fulfillment, you’ll earn more and generate reputation. As you grow reputation with the owner, you unlock more stuff from their shop.

Very basic gameplay loops that feed into each other, lovely stuff. I might have liked a very small amount or a small chance of repeated buying from the store growing the reputation too, but that’s me being picky. That’s beside the point, though; it is, more so, how slowly this way of progression can be. Mostly because to unlock further shops to get through main story objectives, you need to grow your reputation with the first shop so much that you’re 6-10 hours in (if you’re quick) and only just opening the second shop.

In theory, I don’t hate this slow progression, but I think the way that it is done can be frustrating. The second shop, called Code Green, only opens after you’ve grown and made X amount of something that requires getting to the 5th level of reputation with the first shop, DIY Club. Yet to even get there, you need to be multiple years in-game through progression, so min-maxing it, that’s 12 days (months) per year at 16 minutes per day – that would be 9.5 – 10 hours of progression just to get to the point where you’re opening the second of five shops for progress.

This is where my context of a save-breaking bug compounds the frustration. Especially when trying to meet a deadline. Yet for all of this annoyance, for all of this “why isn’t there an extra mechanic in here,” I keep finding myself going back every two or so hours for a little more. I know it is a trope at this point to compare cozy games to it, but there is that Animal Crossing thing of hopping on to play, progressing a little bit, and going back to doing a bit more work around the house or something else. That pick-up-and-play cozy game.

Tiny Eden has a “podcast game” feel about it where you are doing these almost mindless tasks over and over, or simply waiting on timers to conclude. What I’d like, though, is for the pacing and progression to flow. If I may levy a criticism beyond being a bit buggy and rough in places, you (at least in the review build) unlock certain things too early, without much in the way of direction, or without a buffer before realizing you’ve broken your save.

On the first point of that list, I was able to unlock the drones before I’d opened the second shop. I was also able to do so before opening up the second room, which sort of requires items from the second shop. I can’t quite make up my mind whether Tiny Eden is a bit too slow in the progression, or a bit too messy pacing-wise as a result.

Don’t get me wrong, between plant care, cooking for orders, composting, and decorating, I am loving Tiny Eden every time I boot it up and play for a while. I think it is something you’ll love if you like cozy, Animal Crossing-style games. However, I don’t know if the build we’ve been playing is just too buggy to give a proper account of it or if this is a recommendation with a heavy asterisk. I want to say the latter, with the main point of the asterisk being that you can persevere with a slow sort of game that might have issues.

Ultimately, Tiny Eden is (metaphorically) a beautiful little garden with the occasional weed to remove and work to be done, but you’ll sit back from time to time just admiring how simple it is. Cozy, warm, and inviting, the fact that I have to caveat the review of Tiny Eden with mention of issues big and small, from bugs to potential turn-offs, does make me a little sad.

A PC review copy of Tiny Eden was provided by Digital Vortex Entertainment for this review.

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Tiny Eden

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Cozy, warm gameplay.
• Simple and rewarding gameplay loops.

Cons

• Pacing; quite slow to get going.
• Bugs, not the pollinating kind either.