First Impressions
It looks like a fair mix of bricks that will be useful and appears to come in a storage brick in the pictures on the internet. The cost per piece seems reasonable. The layout of the parts list on the box makes it appear like there will be high number of good color pieces. Read on though, this box contains one element I have not found in other sets yet: Disappointment.
Retail Cost is $ 16.99 but can be found on sale fairly regularly on the internet or at local big box.
Parts
Piece Count 221
Getting into the box quickly quashed any hopes I had of an even mix of drab and useful bricks with filler and happy color bricks. Almost all the substantial bricks were bright colors with few natural tones that I seek out for the projects that I have in mind.
Build
Dutifully, I followed the instructions provided.
Random Rant
Psst... Hey! Kid! Want to build the lighthouse but you are 6 an can't figure it out from the picture? Go on the computer and get on the internet! Nothing dangerous there at all for young people at all. More screen time while you are supposed to be playing with blocks won't hurt you. And besides, you'll never look at anything other than the instructions... right?
This might not be popular and probably is confusing coming from a man whose hobby is playing with blocks and writing a blog about them. Allegedly "supervised" use of the internet by someone who couldn't figure out how to build the lighthouse themselves is a bad idea.
When given a choice the majority of people will take the easy road physically and mentally. My nephew was visiting recently and one of the things he liked to do was watch other people play video games on YouTube. I will never understand that behavior. This wasn't watching a video to figure out a technique to build something or how to get past a difficult part in a game, it's just watching someone else play a video game. I suppose it's like watching sports... I'm just not going to get it.
Set Elements
It was kind of neat how the set showed many different scales in a few easy building projects. The pencil and eraser are a little bigger than life-size. The what I assume was a (glitter?) bombed out storefront is minifigure scale and the plant is somewhere in between unless it is a man sized weed.
There were several techniques in the instructions that I found interesting for the age level this is targeted at. Despite the claims that this is for 4-99 age group, the amount of bubblegum pink and dark fuchsia implies this is for the younger end of the range. The roof of the, uh.... "structure" did overhang creating some depth as well as protection from the elements. It was the same with the awning in alternating colors and the plants in front. A SNOT flagpole also was used, and as someone who is 6'6'', I appreciate that the bin of carrots was not sitting directly on the ground.
Frustrations
My biggest frustration with the set was the packaging. It is designed to look like a yellow 2x2 brick, leading one to think that this set, as many others from the line, comes with some kind of storage box. It does not. So now, we are stuck with a molded piece that is of fairly high quality and it is just going to get recycled.
A smaller (and no pun intended) frustration, and one I just could not figure out, was this door piece. It's tiny! It's not remotely minifigure scale, the microfigures that are not particularly common, and with the rounded profile of the frame it will always leave significant gaps unless it is used with a very specific brick that is not in the same color.
There is also a significant ratio of what I call "wheat and chaff" in this set and as an AFOL that needs to be taken into consideration. Wheat is what I would go out of my way to get, sort out, etc. This set I expanded the wheat to include fillers, parts I might add to a BrickLink order if they were perhaps cents (bright pink 2x4s to use as filler bricks, for example). Chaff are parts I'd take for free if they were delivered to me and for no extra effort and parts that in bulk lots are not worth sorting except into a big bin to sell or trade. They are the parts that if they are dirty I just trash 'em instead of putting them aside to clean as it's not worth the effort.
Final Thoughts & Recommendations
Avoid. Very few pieces that have value to AFOLs. Due to the amount of disappointment contained in this box I decided to look a little further to see if maybe I was missing something. On BrickLink the average sale price of the entire parted out box was $ 15.31 which is saying something when the retail cost is $ 16.99 and includes no additional labor of parting it out. The only time the full set sold on BrickLink in the first four months of 2022 as a set was for $ 6.99 which is about where this should be. If that was the case, it would be a take it or leave it.
I believe this set was made specifically to hit a price point of less than $20 with tax and that big box stores could fill shelf space with and put on sale. Lego and big box are out to make money which I support as I also like to get paid, but and this one is not for AFOLs and I wouldn't get it as a gift for someone either.