Peanut Butter the dog will compete in the world’s biggest game speedrunning event

At Awesome Games Done Quick 2024, an event where gamers try to finish games as fast as possible in “speedruns”, a dog named Peanut Butter will be completing a run of Gyromite.

• READ MORE: How Bryan Intihar made a video game masterpiece in ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’

Peanut Butter has previously played the NES game before, achieving a time of 25 minutes and 29 seconds in July. However, when looking up the run on Speedrun.com, it is credited to his owner, speedrunner JSR_. Check out the trailer for Peanut Butter’s Awesome Games Done Quick 2024 appearance below:

The first run was a collaborative effort where JSR_ instructed Peanut Butter on which controls to press using a simplified version of a NES controller, but Peanut Butter was the only one pressing the buttons in Gyromite.

“This took years of training,” said the speedrunner in the video description of the first Gyromite run. “I wanted to train him to do something special when I realised 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, you know, getting a ‘PB’ in a speedrun) it only made sense to me.”

Peanut Butter is a Shiba Inu, a breed of dog known for their above average intelligence. However, their personalities often mean that they don’t listen to their owner all of the time, preferring to be independent, and they’re very food motivated.

Therefore, the fact that JSR_ has managed to not only train Peanut Butter to play games but be interested in playing too is impressive.

While Peanut Butter is playing Gyromite, JSR_ will also appear at Awesome Games Done Quick with a Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse run. No dates or times have been provided at the moment – the schedule will be released on April 11, 2024.

In other gaming news, Microsoft addressed the recent rumours that there would be a surprise launch of Call Of Duty games on Game Pass to celebrate the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

The post Peanut Butter the dog will compete in the world’s biggest game speedrunning event appeared first on NME.