Animals Notes on anime, games & creatures

My hamster’s reaction to watching a speedrun of Super Mario

The experiment began on a humid Brisbane evening, with Nimbus, my Syrian hamster, watching from a secure travel pen on the coffee table. A speedrunner was attempting Super Mario World without the usual detours: no cautious searching, no waiting for power-ups, and no admiration for scenery. I expected Nimbus to yawn, groom a paw, and treat the whole thing as background noise. Instead, her nose worked like tiny radar, tracking every pixel and sound.

Within seconds, her whiskers tilted toward the speaker and both front paws rested on the cushion’s edge. When the hero jumped over a Goomba, Nimbus flinched; when a coin vanished in a bright chime, her ears rose as if she expected a treat. She never learned the rules. What she understood was movement, sudden noise, and the suspicious possibility that food might be involved.

I kept notes on the run, partly because Nimbus seemed unusually alert. The runner cleared a castle in under three seconds, chained warp pipes, and squeezed through a level with comic precision. Each jump produced a rapid burst of electronic music; each pause brought a hush that made Nimbus freeze. By the final screen, she had moved closer without touching the remote, a stronger response than most viewers manage.

The funny part was not the record-breaking time. It was the mismatch between Nimbus’s intense investigation and the speedrunner’s total confidence. To her, the television probably resembled a glowing box full of squeaking insects. That interpretation suited her perfectly. It also showed that a hamster need not understand a platformer to be mesmerised by it. Quick movement, a bright coin, and a predictable human hand are enough for a small animal to build a story.

A small couch, a very big finish

The first full attempt followed the familiar route through World 1-1, but the runner treated every staircase like a trapdoor. Nimbus’s head swung left and right, copying each leap with a quick twitch of her nose. She even leaned when the sprite vanished into a pipe. It looked less like concentration and more like a spectator trying to follow friends through a crowded railway station.

When the runner reached the castle, silence fell except for rapid key presses and Nimbus’s faint nose squeaks. Then came the rescue, the flag, and a compressed victory tune. Nimbus froze for a full second, then bounced in place as if the entire performance belonged to her. The timer said she had been watching for twenty-seven minutes. Given the stakes, that felt roughly right.

Sound, motion, and internet lore

The strongest pull was sound rather than story. Super Mario is full of bright chiptune melodies, clipped jump noises and coin chimes, all compressed into a speedrun at an unusual pace. Nimbus’s hearing was far more sensitive than mine, so I lowered the volume and watched her ears pivot towards each cue. She reacted to the pitch of a jump, not the pixel hero’s destination, which made her attention feel impressively specific.

My browsing then drifted to another internet corner, which added another layer of nostalgia to the session. Online comments sped by whenever the runner nearly missed, and I could almost chart the collective panic from the corner of my eye. Nimbus answered with rapid squeaks that sounded perfectly suited to fictional speedrun commentary.

Keeping the tiny audience comfortable

Watching television should be entertainment for the person, not an endurance test for the hamster. I placed Nimbus’s enclosure on a low table about two metres from the screen, with the lid secure and the room still enough for her to retreat. Loud, sudden sounds can stress small animals, and a television stand is not a substitute for a properly designed cage.

At my local Coles, the useful supplies were a plain cardboard hide, paper bedding and a small portion of sunflower seeds split across several pockets for foraging. I also found a pet-safe tunnel at a Sunday market stall in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, priced at A$12, which cost more than expected but less than the novelty of watching the hamster inspect it immediately.

Australian weather and hamster comfort

The climate added another variable. Brisbane apartments can stay warm and humid long after sunset, while Sydney heatwaves can make an animal room feel like a parked car. In Canberra, frost can settle on the grass by early morning, so the change from a cool night to a warmer afternoon deserves attention. I kept Nimbus’s enclosure away from direct sun, maintained the room at a steady 18–24°C, and used a gentle fan for air movement without pointing it at her.

Her favourite viewing spot remained beside the cardboard hide, where she could emerge when a jump sounded especially dramatic. If she flattened her ears, ran to a corner or stopped eating, I ended the session. The speedrun could wait; her comfort mattered more than another personal best.

A calm routine for game night

By the end of the week, the speedrun had become part of our small evening routine, but I kept the format deliberately low-key. The goal was shared attention rather than a hamster training programme or a gaming marathon. Nimbus got sounds, movement and my occasional commentary; she got breaks whenever she wanted them. The useful routine was simple:

The rabbit-chase artwork I keep beside my notes came from an anime wallpaper walkthrough I had bookmarked under the simple label own, which sounds strange but fits the deliberately odd tone of this animal blog. It is also a neat reminder that fandom jokes, platformers and small pets can share the same screen without needing a grand explanation. Nimbus still prefers a cucumber slice, but she seems willing to tolerate Super Mario when the runner moves quickly.