A good boy: Awesome Games Done Quick, the winter version of the speedrunning marathon for charity, will be the first iteration of the bi-annual event to feature a canine competitor. Speedrunner JSR recently shared that his dog, a Shiba Inu named Peanut Butter (or PB, which also happens to be short for personal best, a familiar term in the speedrunning community), will compete at AGDQ 2024 in January.
It will be an online run (surely a letdown for those in attendance) but it is noteworthy nevertheless.
Peanut Butter will be playing Gyromite, a game released in 1985 for the Nintendo Entertainment System as one of only two titles designed for use with the R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) accessory. PB utilizes a custom game controller mapped to four buttons to help navigate the game: A, B, both buttons, and the Select button.
A few months back, JSR uploaded a video of the good boy completing the game in 25:29. Will the doggo be able to top his own personal best at AGDQ? We shall see.
Games Done Quick has served as one of the top speedrunning event hosts since 2010. The organization holds two flagship events each year: Awesome Games Done Quick in the winter and Summer Games Done Quick during the hot season. The semi-annual marathons raise money for two primary charities: Doctors Without Borders and the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The most recent event, Summer Games Done Quick 2023, raised $2.27 million for Doctors Without Borders.
The January 2024 marathon will be the first in-person AGDQ since 2020, as the 2021, 2022, and 2023 events were all held virtually online due to the pandemic. It is scheduled for January 14-21, and will be the first to be held in Pittsburgh, PA.
Between now and them, GDQ will be hosting a mini event called Games Done Quick Express. It goes down October 20-22 from Las Vegas at TwitchCon 2023. JSR will be running Zelda II: The Adventure of Link at GDQx, we are told.