Have you heard of Dennis the Menace? No, not that Dennis. The other Dennis. Yeah, they're two, and if you're from the UK you most likely know what I am talking about. Through some freak coincidence, two Dennis the Menace were created and debuted on the same day back in 1951. You can't make that stuff up. They're also still both ongoing.
What else do they have in common you ask? Well, they're both about mischievous little boys (hence the name one would guess) with a pet dog. While US Dennis is well meaning but gets into trouble, the UK Dennis is definitely more of a cunning prankster. In fact, the UK Dennis has had to have a bit of a clean-up recently as he could have been considered something of a bully for most of his existence.
I had never heard of the UK Dennis before I met my SO from England, who introduced me to Dennis' magazine The Beano. The Beano sports a plethora of characters with similarly witty names and dubious personalities, like Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger, Bash Street Kids, Les Pretend and Ivy the Terrible. Some of the more cheeky characters have had to move over for kids with other skills, like Dangerous Dan, Ruby and Betty (with her Yeti), presumably because a magazine focused entirely on being naughty doesn't fly so well anymore.
As you can imagine The Beano characters are also available in various kinds of merchandise, of which my children already own most - thanks to an enthusiastic Beano-fan, their father. They have mugs, t-shirts, jumpers, bed sheets, back packs, lunch boxes and hats, to mention a few. Then we also have Beano themed "Who's There?", "Top Trumps" and "Clue" board games.
And we also own the board game I intend to talk a little about here, the BEANO Board Game, which is its own original idea giving the players the opportunity to try to be the one who does more pranks than the other players.
To do this the player needs to collect sets of two cards. One card represents the prank object, like a wiggly worm, a whoopee cushion or a stink bomb. The other card represents the idea of what kind of prank to do with the item, like throwing a water balloon at the Cinema or throwing a stink bomb at the Lighthouse. Once you have a set of cards (water balloon and Cinema) you need to get to the Cinema on the board to collect your point.
Sounds easy enough. Of course there are plenty of things that can go wrong along the way. Other players can "nab" your idea and certain areas on the board forces you to trade your prank items with each other. There is a lot of opportunity to ruin your co-players plans and you often have to act as quickly and as secretly as possible. Your ideas are open for anyone to see, but your prank items are hidden. Until you have to trade them off that is...
For better or worse, there is a good amount of luck required to be the winner in this game, since you both need to collect "the right" pranks and ideas, but also land on squares on the board that are beneficial to you. The tactical element lies in which path to take and which prank to try to achieve, since each roll with the die often gives you several different options. I think the board makes a decent job at trying to level out some of the luck - if you don't get the right cards, you might be able to steal them from other players instead. Rolling the die and ending up on a white square is probably the worst that can happen in this game, an entire round of not really achieving anything.
You can play the game two players, but I'd recommend being at least three. The more you are, the more happens each round, the less safe you feel and the more chaos will ensue. That is when this game is at its best. Be prepared to make some enemies because this game allows you to be very cruel.
Overall I think the game does a good job at being fun while also staying true to the BEANO soul - running around trying to do as many pranks as possible is entirely in the right vein of the BEANO comic. If you want something cerebral and deep, this is definitely not the game for you. But if you're a fan of the BEANO comic and want an evening of aggravating your co-players, you could definitely do worse.
