Chortle: The Beano commission official Dennis and Gnasher Minecraft mod

Dennis the Menace

If you were to pick a cartoon archetype for the average Minecraft player, you’d probably wind up somewhere between Dennis the Menace and simpering perma-pushover Walter: knees grazed and outgoing, but with the patience required for wiki study and a penchant for flowers.

It’s Dennis we’ll soon be able to play as, however. Canadian game devs Frima Studios are working on a Minecraft mod with Beano publishers DC Thomson – with an eye to bringing more characters over from the comics if demand is there.

“The Beano has always been about great storytelling, imagination and creativity,” said DC Thomson’s Mark Cotton. “Minecraft is a perfect match for us, providing an amazing sandbox for kids to take our characters, tell their own stories, prank their friends and build out Beanotown.”

The Dundee-based Dennis creators have been busy promoting the mod already, with help from ChooChoosGaming. If you’re in the 12+ bracket, you’re not really the target audience for the clip below – but the energetic YouTuber does demo Dennis’ custom tomato-hurling slingshot, and use eggs to spawn canine companion Gnasher and long-suffering menesis Walter.

Cotton told The Guardian that the publishers would “love to” expand the mod to incorporate other Beano characters. A movement speed modifier would make for a great Billy Whizz – but I’d imagine the world generation would struggle to keep up.

Projects like this are a rarity. Most sanctioned pop culture crossovers in Minecraft to date have been restricted to 4J Studios’ Xbox version. Perhaps cross-platform collaborations can be one of the first bits of good to come out of the Microsoft Minecraft deal. What do you reckon?