Brunch At The Old Mill Review

When I looked at the World Of Wonders Venue and set last month, one of my comments was how well it fitted in with other sets and expansion packs. This month, the Brunch at the Old Mill set has done the same thing!

First things first, the set is a build/buy set, with premium content, not a venue. However, the Old Mill and its neighbouring lot are both available for free on the exchange, courtesy of SimGuruKitty, and are designed to replace the two lots up at the waterfalls in Sunset Valley.  Personally, I think they’re two of the best official lots for the game!

The premium content includes the Old Miller Tea Time Tea Set, Old Mill Water Wheel, and Grandma’s Canning Station, which a lot of simmers have been crying out for! And, finally, the corn harvestable has been fully enabled!

Self-Sufficient Sims

For self-sufficient Sim families, the Mill Wheel and Canning Station provide a fantastic way to make, and save, money. The Mill Wheel allows you to fish, boosting your fishing skill at a higher than average rate, and allowing you to catch most fish, at least the base game ones. So far, my catches include Robot Fish, Vampire Fish and even a Death Fish. In Daylight! A single Mill Wheel also has the added advantage of reducing your sims’ bills, in a similar way to solar panels and windmills in Sims 2. The reduction appears to be around a third of what they would be without the wheel, but there’s no bonus for having more than one..

Canning Station

The Canning Station allows your sim to take any harvestable and turn it into either Jams or Preserves. As in real life, some items are more recommended that others! Each use requires three matching items added to the Canning Station, and results in 3 jars, which initially start valued at §100 each, but drop quite rapidly. You do need to sell these via inventory, rather than consign them. Or you can eat them, for various moodlets. Using the canning station also builds up your cooking skill, although despite appearances, it does not function as a stove, you still need one of those for day to day cooking. It does, however, have a few extra slots for deco, to really build the impression of a busy farmhouse kitchen..

Both of these items are relatively inexpensive for home lots, and can be used on community lots as well.

Tea set

The tea set looks lovely, and reminds me of Sunday afternoons visiting my Granny in the dim and distant days of my childhood. I was a little disappointed that it’s single-sim use only, so you can’t have a gossip over tea with your girlfriends, but seeing them drinking tea with their pinky stuck out is so sweet!

Like the World of Wonder set, this does feel very much like a completer set – adding in the last few pieces and tying stuff together at the end – which, thanks to recent announcements, we know is coming in August.

While playing with and testing the various features of the set, my sim’s family increased and needed to move – so they moved into Sandy Shoals, the lot from the latest featured look! I love it! It’s light, airy and well laid out. My sims are currently living on the Sunset Valley shoreline in it, but it would look equally at home on any beach type world, such as Barnacle Bay or Isla Paradiso as well.