Selve

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• Announcements·22 Oct 2025Official

  Tokyo Game Show and Indie Games Chile 2025! Try the open playtest of Selve

  Indie Fest 2025 - Remember to try the open playtest of Selve!I want to start this post with this so you don’t miss the chance to try our playtest, currently open to anyone! We are actively looking for feedback on our mechanics and implementations. We still have a lot to work on, mainly the onboarding process for new players, but your opinion is truly precious to us at this crucial point!We are currently participating in Indie Fest Chile 2025, a celebration of the Chilean game development industry! There are some amazing titles that were developed in this country, and it’s an honor to be part of this selection of games!Tokyo Game Show 2025We had a blast showcasing our game at Tokyo Game Show 2025!The event consisted of two days of business meetings and two more days of exhibitions open to the public. During the business days, we showed the game to different publishers, receiving a lot of interest and great comments (we’re still actively talking to some of those publishers who showed interest!). During the open exhibition days, we let players try Selve — the same short demo available in our open playtest right now!We had a really small stand as part of the Chilean pavilion, so we shared our space with other developers from Chile (the best country of Chile!). Compared with the giant stands around us, we were veeery small, still, we received a lot of players interested in this weird game!We truly appreciate everyone who showed interest in our project. We received some really nice comments and great feedback from everyone who tried the game.Here are some photos of people playing Selve at Tokyo Game Show! Thank you so much for playing Selve 💚
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• Announcements·24 Sept 2025Official

  Our First Playtest!

  Today!We are lunching our first playtest, completly open to anyone interested on playing Selve, the game is still in early development, but we really want to show it to the world as soon as we can to fix every problem and to hear every advise.This announcement will be very short, we hope you enjoy this small sample of the demo, it only consists in one level, not even the main hub level, but it's objective it's to test the main mechanics and interactions of Selve, it dosen't include too much of the story and narrative aspect, although it's something very central to the experience we want to create, we sincerly hope you find some potencial in this demonstration.Best regards,NicolasPd: we are showing this exact same demo at Tokyo Game Show 2025, where we will be running a giveaway of two handmade plushes of Selve! if you are goingo to Tokyo Game Show, please come to chat with us!
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• Patch Notes·2 Jul 2025Official

  Development Update: Entering Phase 2: Stripping down to the core

  Hey everyone!In my last post I promised to cover the narrative and the emotional core I hope Selve can express, but I have to talk about this first, the next one will cover that, I promiseI wanted to share a big update on the direction of the project and where things are headed next. Over the past year (from April 2024 to April 2025), I’ve been building an internal demo full of experiments, features, and systems. This was an important phase where I let myself explore freely, trying out different ideas to figure out what this game truly wanted to be.Through that process, I was able to define the theme, story, and worldbuilding of Selve. I also learned which mechanics actually serve the heart of the experience and which ones just get in the way.The core theme I want to communicate is:"How can I express different emotions or ideas through a melody?"Now that the development of this game is moving to the next stage, some initial decisions need to be refined and discarded: this is Design by Subtraction.That means cutting out everything that doesn’t align with the theme. It’s time to refine.What’s Changing?In the current version of the game, you manipulate NPCs using music-composing magic. It’s an interesting system, but too complex, and it ended up pulling the game away from that core theme. The process of influencing NPCs took too many steps and wasn’t really that fun. So I'm removing that whole system.Also, platforming. There’s still going to be some, after all, exploration is part of the experience, but it’s no longer a main pillar of the game. It’ll be there to support the world, not distract from the music.What’s the New Focus?The game is now about simply playing melodies. You’ll perform them for the giant spirits of the Mulong tribe, who will judge your songs based on their own unique preferences. If they like your melody, they’ll reward you.This mechanic, which I briefly explored during the development of the first internal demo, uses a machine learning algorithm c...
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• Announcements·7 May 2025Official

  Why make this game?

  Because music is much deeper than just rhythm The short answer: because I feel that video games, in general, have stopped exploring mechanics centered around music. Most music games today are just rhythm games. I have nothing against them, but for me, music holds many interesting aspects worth exploring. I’d like to dedicate my life to uncovering the different elements that fascinate me. In this case, Selve focuses on melody—seeking answers to questions like: What makes a melody sound good? How can I make what I play sound pleasing? How can I express different emotions or ideas through a melody? But where does this curiosity come from? Mainly, from a deep desire to understand the world of musical creation and to bring that world closer to others. This is the core principle behind this game—and, hopefully, the ones I will continue to develop in the future. At least when it comes to gameplay mechanics. I can't end this post without mentioning the two games that have influenced me the most. Their influence might not be immediately obvious in Selve, but they are undeniably a big reason why I'm now making music-focused games: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (with the bongo controllers!). Ocarina of Time was such a creative and inspiring adventure for me. I played it when I was around 17—not exactly a little kid—but I was deeply into music at the time, learning guitar and getting into music theory. That Zelda game arrived at just the right moment in my life. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45594991/6204c92bb572a974f950a661ec3b05fca9fce735.png When I played Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, it was another eye-opening moment. It made me realize that game controls didn’t have to be just a joystick—the type of control you use shapes the experience itself. That game offered a far more physical experience, and the battles were genuinely intense in a bodily, energetic way. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45594991/55d3eecfd8719f5a4c83a7e59dd00e4e7f1aea05.jpg These influences have s...
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