Sometimes, based on the recommendation of the lovely Touch Arcade community, you get to go into a project completely blind. I had never heard of the source material for Eden: The Game (Free), which is apparently based on a UK reality television show where a group of people live in a remote area of Scotland for an entire year. It’s not only meant as entertainment for the masses, but it’s also a social experiment in and of itself. The mobile game adaptation somewhat symbolizes how difficult it is to get an encampment up and running from nothing, with a little less thrill involved, of course.

Eden is a building game, devoid of some of the annoying tendencies associated with clickers and other devolved, similar titles. Your job is to start with a single settlement, with a group of people surrounding around a campfire, and build from there. Essential resources like water are paramount, as well as creating new tech trees by way of additional buildings like a carpentry hut. You’ve pretty much seen all of it before, but the nice serene package that Eden presents makes it a much easier pill to swallow.

All of the lush green landscapes are a joy to look at, as is the misty fog that surrounds unexplored areas, beckoning you to come in. All of the icons, while basic, are handy and easy to identify, like droplets of water, axes and other tools, and piles of wood. It gets a little muddled once you get into specifics like “fence posts" and “beams," but it’s something most people will pick up during an extended session. Like most slower paced builders that don’t rely on any sort of twitch combat element, Eden works wonderfully on a touch device. UI buttons are usually big enough to press without accidentally selecting other errant options, and it’s very easy to see what’s going on, from the macro element of the camp itself to the citizens walking about.

I used the phrases serene and slow for a reason — this is not a particularly exciting experience. It’s a chill one for sure, but after a few hours of flipping around the screen and not having anything to do for moments at a time, it can get a bit old. There are no real major “hazards" to account for, which is partially responsible for its dull moments. Take the Sim City series for example — which features natural disasters — you’d have to always be on your toes at all times to figure out how you’re going to respond to any kinks in your perfect plan. But with Eden, there’s no predators, no antagonistic sets of rules to contend with outside of occasional annoyances like a thunderstorm, which can be patched up in seconds with a few taps, or a changing of the seasons, which merely requires a few altered clicks.

It can get even rougher after several hours of play, where players are waiting for resources to spawn — vital resources, mind — which impedes progress, sometimes coupled by buggy spawns. It’s not the end of the world as I ended up doing other things (you can move on to other community tasks/challenges if they’re bugged), or tended to other elements of my settlement, but it’s pacing problems like that, that start to make it feel like a clicker. That said, it does feel refreshing when Eden doesn’t explicitly tell you how to do something, and allows you to figure it out on your own. It’s never too taxing, but appreciated all the same.

Even though Eden is basically an advertisement for the show (though admittedly, very thinly veiled as I didn’t even realize that until I had discovered multiple discussions about the game online), it still has microtransactions. The good news is that they’re relatively painless and can be ignored, as the game is entirely playable without them. If you wish though you can spring for increments of $1.99 in premium currency all the way up to $39.99, which basically just speed up the proceedings a bit. Note, however, that they won’t magically add in new unpredictable aforementioned elements, so this is mainly if you really enjoy Eden and want to progress faster.

Eden: The Game is a special type of project that won’t appeal to everyone. If you’re looking to feel a rush pretty much at all times, battling danger left and right while you build your new utopia, directly interacting with other hostile players, look elsewhere.  Everyone else will find a little bit of respite, even if the overall system could stand for a few upgrades and new scenarios down the line.