On January 16, Peanut Butter became the first dog to ever speedrun a game at Awesome Games Done Quick. And while the Shiba Inu gamer didn’t set a new record today or beat their previous personal best, Peanut Butter is still a very good boy who deserves all the pets and treats.
Last year, PB’s owner announced that he would be the first dog to speedrun at the annual AQDG charity event, which brings together speedrunners from around the world to set records and livestream games l in an effort to raise millions of dollars for various charities, including Doctors Without Borders and the Prevent Cancer Foundation. PB’s game of choice is the Nintendo Entertainment System launch game, Gyromite, a strange puzzle-action game released in 1985. It infamously used a robot accessory that helped “play” the game, but PB takes the place of the robot during his runs using a custom controller with big buttons and getting support from his owner as needed.
Earlier today, Peanut Butter and his owner, speedrunner JSR, streamed the gaming canine’s attempt at setting a new record. Previously, PB had completed Gyromite’s “B Game” mode in 25 minutes and 29 seconds. However, despite being a really good boy who was fed plenty of treats and given lots of pets and who has never done anything wrong in his life, PB wasn’t able to beat his previous best record, coming up just short at 26 minutes and 24 seconds.
PB still holds the record for the fastest dog to ever complete Gryromite’s B Game. He’s also (currently) the only dog to hold that record on Speedrun.com. And he’s not far off the best Game B record set by a human, which is 24 minutes and 39 seconds.
“This took years of training,” JSR wrote in the description of Peanut Butter’s initial Gyromite speedrun. “I wanted to train him to do something special, when I realized as a puppy that he was much smarter than most other dogs I’ve seen. Since I’m a speedrunner and PB was literally named after getting a ‘P’ [personal best] in a speedrun it only made sense to me.”
I think we can all agree that while PB might not be the most skilled gamer in the world, he’s easily the best and least shitty gamer on the planet. And that counts for something in my book.
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