Formless Star is a creature collector / adventure game that released to itch.io on May 16, 2025. I’m very fortunate to have had the creator, Samanthuel Gillson agree to an interview about the development! There will be spoilers for the game, so please go play it first! Happy reading! - August Poe
August: How did you start getting into game development?
Samanthuel: I’ve wanted to make games ever since I was a kid! I used to draw little platformer levels on paper and cut characters out of paper to play on them. I never thought it’d be possible for me though, so I originally planned to be an animator and did that as a job for a little while when I was 18.
Playing Cave Story in 2007 or so planted a seed in my mind though! I began a few game projects with friends that didn’t really go anywhere beyond making some cool concept art and sprites, and did some artwork for other games like Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch and Starbound!
It was my 2012 game “megaman sprite game” that first got really noticed though, for some reason!
August: Where did the idea for Formless Star originate from?
Samanthuel: It was a couple years ago when I had the house to myself for a few days. I’d started playing a Pokemon fangame named Pokewilds, and something about it demystified procedural generated maps for me. I suddenly thought “Hey wait, if I do this and that, I could probably make something like that!”, so I made a really basic map generator in about an hour and a simple little character to walk around.
The rainbow look of the world was actually just a way for me to keep track of each step of the world generation. But I think it looks nice!
Afterwards, I thought, “Well, who is this character, why are they here, and why does the world change?”, and from there the story fell into place! I picked creatures as a theme because I thought it’d be fun to make animals appear in different habitats!
August: What did the process look like for designing each of the animals?
Samanthuel: Very much just doodling whatever ideas came to my mind and picking the best ones. I tried to stick to pretty basic and memorable concepts so that it would be easy to remember which ones you’ve seen before or not, so I scrapped a lot of ideas that felt too similar to others. After I made all 60, I went back and gave each one an animation or effect to make them more fun to find.
August: When did you know when you wanted to limit the animals to 60?
Samanthuel: I think it was just a natural number I ended up with! I originally planned for there to just be 25, but that didn’t feel very satisfying, so I kind of just kept making them until I used all my best ideas. I wanted each animal to have unique spawn conditions and to keep the scope of the game reasonable, so I decided to stop at 60.
August: When designing the biomes, how did you land on the handful that you did, and did you have ideas for other biomes as well?
Samanthuel: It was mostly just considering what biomes could house the most unique animal designs! I picked ideas that could have some level of artifice to them, like the Sand biome having naturally occurring sand castles and the Heat biome being covered in candles, almost like the planet is made out of memories of objects or something. I did consider “Rainforest” and “Cosmic” biomes, but with the map size, I didn’t want there to be too many things competing for space!
August: How was the process of getting the random generation of the biomes to a point that felt good to you?
Samanthuel: Honestly pretty easy! I made it in a kind of simple way that doesn’t really allow for a huge amount of variance, as biomes are basically in fixed areas. For example, the Metal biome always appears in one of the corners of the map, and Heat will always be in the opposite corner. But it’s fine for what it is!
August: What was the most enjoyable part of developing Formless Star? As well as the most difficult?
Samanthuel: I think the answer to both of these was making the animations for the animals.
After designing all 60 animals and making them spawn into the world, most of them didn’t really do anything, so I decided each of them should have some kind of interaction (except for Rampup. Its interaction is that it doesn’t do anything.).
Some of them were pretty easy, while others took a few days each! It was by far the most time consuming part of the game, but at the end I felt like it really strengthened the animal designs and made finding them more fun and surprising! (Also, the Millenium’s End Beam is so cool, right?)
August: How was creating the soundtrack for this game, was there a vision you had in mind or was it more emergent as the game was being made?
Samanthuel: The first music to be made was the themes that play as you explore the planet, which were composed by my friend songs4lizards! I wanted the music to be mysterious and playful but also a bit melancholic and they did such a perfect job! I also included tracks from my friends Imogen Mangle and Monkey KG, who did the Spaceship Bossa and Windmill cutscene music respectively!
I’m not actually a very experienced musician myself, but I was teaching myself piano around the time I started making Formless Star, so I composed the main theme of the game which plays on the title screen and credits. I pretty much just played notes until it sounded nice!
August: How did Sylvia’s Song come about for that character?
Samanthuel: I wanted a flying theme, and I kept thinking of this song whenever I was in the shower! I actually had envisioned it as a more upbeat song with brass instruments similar to the theme of the movie Barbarella, but MIDI doesn’t do wind instruments very well, so it ended up as a slower and more romantic kind of song. Ygor’s vocals are so lovely!!
After making it, it didn’t feel right to have it play right away, you should have to bond with Sylvia a bit first! so I made it only start playing once you’ve done a certain amount of steps.
Almost everyone cites Sylvia as their favourite animal in the game, since they are so useful and get their own song! It hardly seems fair to the other animals!
August: Near the end, Shape talks about creating things just because they want them to exist, is this the approach you take with your art?
Samanthuel: Basically yes! Shape’s dialogue is really just my way of talking to the player about creating art. I actually almost rewrote all her dialogue ‘cause I felt it was too on the nose and didn’t let Shape stand as her own character enough, but really I am glad I left it as is!
August: For the ending, how did you come up with the Yazabi scene?
Samanthuel: I basically came up with it as soon as I made Yazabi into a shapeshifter! I usually just write stories by making them up as I go along and keeping whatever I’ve introduced in mind. I thought that’d be a fun extra ending for people who find all 61 animals!
August: Will Windmill ever get a break?
Samanthuel: Who knows… They have a lot on their plate.
August: When making Formless Star, did you think about the reception of the game?
Samanthuel: I did somewhat, but it’s pretty hard to predict this stuff. I always make stuff pretty much for my own amusement, but, I also love sharing my work with others!
August: Was Formless Star always going to be a free game?
Samanthuel: Pretty much, yes! I wasn’t sure how much to charge for it, so I decided a pay-what-you-want model would be best! That way everyone can play. It worked out pretty well!
August: When developing the game, did you ever have a timeframe of when you wanted the game to be complete, or did you just create until you felt satisfied?
Samanthuel: I definitely feel I spent too long working on this when it was meant to just be a small side project, but I am glad it is what it is! I let it take as long as it needed, since it started feeling like something really special.
August: Would you ever want to return to these characters for another game?
Samanthuel: They might show up in other works as little cameos and stuff! I don’t think I’ll make another game about them any time soon, but I’d love to see them on a new adventure in a different medium! I’m currently thinking about making a sequel comic.
August: Thank you so much for your time, is there anything else you would like to say to fans of Formless Star?
Samanthuel: Just, thank you so much for everything! I love reading comments and emails and seeing fanart so much, it means so much to me to be able to share my little worlds with everyone!
itch.io - https://splendidland.itch.io/formless-star
Samanthuel’s Website - https://www.splendid.land/
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