I get pleasure from Games Done Quick, an organisation that raises money for charity (this 12 months is the Prevent Cancer Foundation) by enjoying video games at peak effectivity. If you have by no means watched it earlier than, I like to recommend loading up the Twitch stream at about 1am and type of gently dissociating whereas somebody performs an 80s NES sport you have by no means heard of. Speaking of, one of many headline acts for this 12 months’s stream – which is operating by means of to this Sunday twenty first – was Peanut Butter, a shiba inu educated to press buttons on command, “enjoying” a NES sport that got here out in 1985. Although Peanut Butter obeyed his coaching, some technical points colluded to grab a world greatest time from him – however he raised many 1000’s of {dollars}, so good for him.
Peanut Butter is the latest excessive tide line within the efforts to place extra bizarre and tough hurdles between you and the controls of video games when speedrunning or streaming them. And I need to ask: the place subsequent? A cat? A snapping turtle biting stress sensors? A Grey parrot to play a sport with none enter from you in any respect? Where will this insanity finish!?
Peanut Butter is owned by JSR_a speedrunner whose achievements embody operating each sport lined on the Angry Video Game Nerd (a challenge he began in 2018which form of baffles me), and the most effective Dog Assistance run for Gyromite. Which, yeah. Although the framing of it has been “the canine is enjoying the sport!” what’s really occurring is that JSR_ is enjoying the sport utilizing his canine, so it is much less an illustration of how nicely he is aware of Gyromite and extra an illustration of how nicely he has educated Peanut Butter. Which may be very nicely, I’d add. This took a 12 months of educating Peanut Butter to, in addition to urgent the stress plate buttons when directed, sit nonetheless for half an hour.
Peanut Butter looks like a stunning canine, and he and JSR_ are clearly very shut, however this can be a ladder we began climbing some time in the past, when that man performed Untitled Goose Game dressed as a goose, and I dunno if I need to preserve climbing a lot previous “man spends 12 months getting canine to pay attention”, as a result of we’re already at fish v Elden Ring. At a sure level you get into monkeys and typewriters territory. Humans aren’t a species above locking dozens of cats in a room with NES controllers and a webcam.
Flippant jokes apart, I do hope that speedrunning dogs do not turn out to be, like, a factor. I can genuinely very simply see a world the place a bunch of fame-desperate young adults purchase shiba inus, after which abandon them when it seems to be arduous work. And look, I realise I’m probably ontologically evil for not liking the meme canine stream as a lot as everybody else. The meme canine stream raised a great deal of money for charity, and I used to be a bit unhappy that Peanut Butter did not get his document (an enemy screen-wrapped from the left aspect to the appropriate aspect, and appeared proper in entrance of a stage exit). Aside from me being an enormous curmudgeon about this enchanting piece of internet-targeted doggo whimsy, I do get pleasure from GDQ as a factor, and it is best to check it out and donate if you happen to’ve a thoughts to.
