Community Spotlight: selcouthmind
Written by BusyGamerBelle
Published on July 17th, 2024
Tell me more about you. Who are you, and how did you get started playing games?
Hi, I'm selcouthmind, or Sel for short. I am an indie game content creator and speedrunner, speedrun marathon organizer and host, and vtuber from Canada. I grew up with a handful of educational and cereal box PC games (Treasure Mountain, Tonka Search & Rescue, and Crayola Paint 'n Play Pony were my jam); I've never owned a console, and neither did most of my friends. During undergrad in 2013, I discovered Minecraft/gaming YouTube, and I started regularly watching several creators as background noise while doing assignments. I had no idea how these creators were accessing these games or recording them; I just enjoyed watching. In 2019, I made a Steam account and started out with three games: Cook, Serve, Delicious!, For the King, and Game Dev Tycoon. I also started streaming on Twitch in 2019 off of a very janky setup on my 2012 MacBook, which introduced me to more games and gaming culture in general.
How did you get into speedrunning, and what was the first game you attempted to speedrun?
My boyfriend at the time showed me AGDQ 2018. Back then, I did not have a Twitch or Steam account and hadn't really played a computer game in the past 10 years. I found speedrunning fascinating, but I had no idea how to get into it. My boyfriend showed me a few resources, but he was into Soulslikes and hitless runs, neither of which are my style. It wasn't until late 2019 when I discovered Stardew Valley and TheHaboo (one of the big OG Stardew runners) that I found a speedrun I was interested in. I tried to do a Community Centre Restoration run, but it was around the time animation canceling and game seeds were discovered, and I found all the changes overwhelming, so I stopped. I later found Dicey Dungeons speedruns in early 2020 and spent some time there running various individual-level categories (ILs) before expanding out into other games and the charity marathon scene in 2022.
What has been your most challenging speedrun and why?
That's a tricky question because it depends on how you want to define "challenging." I guess maybe Trifox. It's a wonderful game, and the devs and speedrun community for it are amazing (that's how I met Ozmourn, a dear friend I now run a charity speedrun event with and my co-op speedrun partner), but it's also in many ways the "odd one out" in my repertoire. It's a 3D twin stick shooter platformer, while most of my speed games are 2D rougelikes or story-driven adventures. I picked it up to submit to AGDQ 2023's second submission period, so I was under time pressure; I never actually finished the third world casually because I was running out of time to learn and submit the run. It was also the first game I ran with significant OOB and other precise movement tricks, which added to the learning curve. I haven't touched it since I ran it at Frost Fatales 2023 (that run was a disaster behind the scenes); I'm looking at getting back into it casually again this year because it's a good game and I enjoyed playing it. Will I ever seriously return to it as a speed game? Who knows.
How do you handle the frustration of failed attempts or mistakes during a run?
Because I run a lot of roguelikes, I've gotten very comfortable with RNG just going badly or me not reacting ideally to it. The best thing you can do is try and find the fun during the bad. But also, it's okay to be upset! My first run of Trifox was around 4 hours long, and that's not including the 15-minute break I had to take during the final boss to pause the timer and just cry. One of my first runs of Dicey Dungeons Full Game Any% died at the very last second due to me making a silly mistake and I was very upset (it would have been sub-hour and a massive PB); I allowed myself to be upset and then got up and tried again once I'd taken a break and had some food and water. A mistake or a failed attempt does not mean you are a failure, and having an emotional response to something you care about not turning out as you'd hoped does not make you weak.
What is your proudest speedrunning achievement?
I don't know if there's a specific achievement that stands out to me. My first appearance on GDQ Hotfix was very memorable. It was She Is Speed hosted by Lanaruse, where I ran Lost Nova Any%, a speedrun I pioneered, with Jon Nielsen, the dev, on commentary. It was a wonderful time and a huge boost to my confidence, because before that it felt like only the "big speedrunners" got to be on Hotfix. I've also had the honor of having Marlowe Dobbe, the artist for Dicey Dungeons, on comms with me three times (Fright Fatales 2022, Frost Fatales 2024, GDQ Hotfix - Time Capsule May 2024). Maybe the thing I'm most proud of is just seeing how I've grown and progressed over the years; I now run over 20 games and am actively learning more; I've run in numerous marathons and had multiple Hotfix appearances; I've pioneered 5 speed games/SRC leaderboards; and I run two speedrun events.
What are your future goals or aspirations within gaming and speedrunning communities?
I have lots of goals and aspirations! My big one is continuing to grow Prevent-A-Thon, the charity speedrun marathon I founded. Our last event was May 30-June 2, 2024, and we raised over $3000 CAD for our charity, Little Warriors. This was massive growth for us, and we're adding more staff now so we can keep making future events even better. I'm looking forward to the next event, Oct. 24-27, 2024! I also founded the Indie Explorer League this year; we'll be announcing our first speedrun marathon, Hidden Gem Rally, very soon (game and volunteer submissions open July 8). I wanted indie and obscure speedruns to have another place to be shown off, as it can be very difficult to get them into most events. Right now there's only one marathon dedicated to indie games and another for obscure games that I've found, and neither are run very well, so my hope for the Indie Explorer League and Hidden Gem Rally is to offer folks another place to showcase these underappreciated games in a welcoming and inclusive environment. I also want to continue growing as a host. I nearly quit hosting at the end of 2023 after receiving some awful feedback from a major event that left me extremely discouraged about my voice, my hosting style, and just everything about me as a host.
A huge thanks to Metroid Crime, hosting lead at No Glitches Allowed, and Jaypeg, hosting lead at Multithon, for entrusting me with the closing shifts at No Holidays Allowed 2023 and Multithon Spring 2024 and being incredibly supportive and giving me the encouragement to keep applying to host at events. Since then I've also hosted for RPG Limit Break, where I received incredible feedback about my audition and live hosting skills. I also got accepted to host at SGDQ 2024 off of my first audition, which was a huge surprise and honor, and will also be hosting at LASS and Flame Fatales this summer. I attribute landing RPGLB and mainline GDQ (the two biggest NA speedrun events) to dropping everything I thought a host should sound like and just being me. For any new or aspiring hosts out there, as long as you've done the work to be clear when you talk (good enunciation, not tripping over words or saying uh/um/etc. frequently), the rest will come with practice. Do not let someone tell you that you shouldn't host just because you don't sound femme enough/masc enough or you aren't hyped and excited all the time or because you're "too hype" or any other critique of your voice and style; all types of voices and all styles of hosting are valid. You might just have to find a host coordinator who sees and appreciates you for you. Finally, I would love to get on GDQ mainstage someday with a run; ideally I'd get Dicey Dungeons in, but I also have such a diverse catalog of stuff that would be cool to show, and I'm always learning new runs with the goal of showcasing them at events. I'd also love to attend RPG Limit Break in person someday, as a host, a runner, or even just as an attendee.
Follow selcouthmind on social media!
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/selcouthmind
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theselcouthmind
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/selcouthmind.bsky.social
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_selcouthmind