One of the most popular Roblox games is poised to enter the literary world.
Today, April 30, Roblox creator studio BlushCrunch Studio, the creator of the platform’s popular Dandy’s World horror experience, announced a partnership deal with Scholastic. Working with a co-author, BlushCrunch founder and Roblox creator Qwelver will write and publish a Dandy’s World guidebook and novel in spring 2027, followed by a graphic novel in fall 2027.
In Dandy’s World, players explore the abandoned Gardenview Center, completing tasks and uncovering lore as they avoid hostile characters and other pitfalls. The survival game has a large and proven audience on Roblox, drawing over 6 billion visits from over 90 million unique visitors since launching in June 2024.
“I grew up going to the Scholastic Book Fair, so getting to create Dandy’s World books with them is so surreal,” Qwelver said in a press release. “There are so many stories to tell in the Dandy’s World universe, and we’ve only just scratched the surface. I’ve been working with Scholastic and some super talented writers to create fun stories that I hope many fans will enjoy.”
Scholastic and BlushCrunch declined to share specific details regarding the structure or value of their partnership deal, but Scholastic editorial director Michael Petranek confirmed that it is an ongoing partnership intended to include future titles beyond the 2027 planned releases in an interview with GamesBeat. In addition to guidebooks, novels and graphic novels, Scholastic has world rights in all languages to publish Dandy’s World coloring and activity books, journals and novelty books across print, ebook and audio editions.
“We don’t often lead with guidebooks, but we really felt like doing something immersive and in-world was a great thing to start with,” Petranek said.
Although the upcoming Dandy’s World books are intended for an audience aged 8 and above, Petranek said that he anticipates there will be significant interest in the series among adult readers, which he said is often the case for game-inspired books. Petranek’s Graphix imprint works with gaming creators and IP both inside and outside of Roblox, but he said that the amount of Roblox IP his team is working with is “definitely” growing over time.
“We don’t want to publish into everything on Roblox — we’re very careful about what we pursue — but the fact that something like Dandy’s World could be created on that platform is just really special to me,” he said.
For BlushCrunch Studio, translating Dandy’s World into guidebooks and graphic novels is the first step of an ongoing IP expansion strategy. Over the past year, there has been a groundswell of industry speculation that the next big media property is going to come out of a user-generated content platform like Roblox, with major IP holders in the space like DoBig Studios actively looking to adapt their properties into film and TV.
“We’ve only just begun to tell the story of Dandy’s World,” said BlushCrunch Studio president Joe Jurbala in an interview with GamesBeat. “We have always believed its debut on Roblox could be the start of a franchise that lives across mediums, and Scholastic is the perfect partner to bring Gardenview into print.”