Community

Kia ora koutou, 

Most of you have responded to the backer survey and received your digital rewards. The physical proof is on its way to me as I write, so fingers crossed we'll have physical rewards headed your way before too long as well!

If you haven't received your survey for Magestar, please check your spam folder. If you still can't see it, or have any problems, get in touch! You can contact me as always at [email protected], or just comment below. 

Ngā mihi nui, 

Sam 

Kia ora koutou, 

Backerkit advises creators to do what's called a 'smoke test' before sending surveys. As a result, a very small number of you should have just received surveys from this campaign! Once you've filled them out and I can confirm those are working as intended, the rest of you will receive yours. 

Thanks for the support, 

Sam

Kia ora tatou! Thanks again for the massive show of support. It's more than I'd hoped for for my little game and I'm beyond thankful. With so many of you being first time Backerkit customers I suppose you're wondering: what's next?

Let me run you through it! 

Backers will receive their surveys March 15th (give or take a day or two.) Once these are completed, digital rewards will be emailed immediately! You'll receive codes to redeem digital rewards through itch.io. At the same time I'll order my physical proof of Magestar from lulu.com, to make sure the zine is looking its best before backer copies are mailed out. Once I've confirmed all is fine and dandy, physical rewards will be printed and shipped! I've estimated April 24th to be on the safe side, but they'll likely be sent out earlier. =)

Any questions? Hit me up in the comments or email [email protected]!

Ngā mihi, 

Sam 

In September 2025 I was travelling abroad for a friend's wedding. There were a few quiet evenings where I mucked around with ideas in my phone's notepad, the traditional spawning pool of many a game. It was around that time that I came up with the idea for a high fantasy Belonging Outside Belonging game called Magestar. 

Magestar as it now exists is very different. Somewhere along the way it morphed into a mapmaking game, with Belonging Outside Belonging DNA only visible in the Rest prompts in which the roleplaying element is grounded. But across all those changes the Wizard playbook's core themes have gone unchanged: you learned to do magic by studying the Magestar, and sometimes this is bad for you. 

Backers can see the full Wizard playbook below! 

The poll ended in a tie between the Seer and the Wizard. Rather than me choosing between the two, let's give each their own post. First up: the Seer!

I played the Seer for the first time last week and had a blast. The Seer's Exhaustion feature, which causes monsters to spill from rifts in reality, adds a delicious dramatic element. Backers can view the entire Seer playbook below!