Subterranean Weekly Notes: June 6, 2026

Weekly notes, on my blog. Here they will remain in my journal, instead of going down the drain of social networks.

WE ARE NOW OVER 1000

This week Caverns and Dryads reached 1000 players and is already surpassing that number. This makes me very happy! 

I published an announcement on Steam that I would love you to read:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3634870/view/693137145499485021

I wrote it for you, adventurer.

As the solo developer of Caverns and Dryads, I wanted to share this with all of you.

I’m aware that I released my game as final when it was still early, and that gave me far fewer wishlists. Also, being a free game brings continuous visits, but there’s no incentive to add it to a wishlist. And some people take an eternity to install and play, even when lots of thousands added it to their library.

However, I achieved the purpose I had: reaching a community. If you enjoy Caverns and Dryads, you can leave a review on the game’s Steam page. That helps me a lot.

I would love to reach more players so I can organize online chats, have more posts in the community and Discord, and be able to do more things. You can also participate there or comment here. One of the things I enjoy most is the exchange of ideas with adventurers.

SOCIAL SITES AND ME

This week I tried promoting myself on Tiktok, Instagram, and Pinterest.

How did it go? Disastrously.

The first Tiktok post, fabulous: 1934 views. The second, 779. The third, 1.

Of course, it offers me advertising if I pay. What a coincidence.

I’ve already given up on Instagram’s algorithm figuring out who my audience is.

And on Pinterest, people are more interested in realistic images of Tamzyn than in dark fantasy ones.

It’s a shame because the worldbuilding cards I publish are beautiful.

Am I going to keep posting there? Not frequently. From how everyone talks, and from what I’m experiencing, social networks have become greedy and stingy.

They want our posts, opinions, content… in exchange for nothing. You bring them traffic or at least entertain people for two nanoseconds while they scroll into infinity. But if you try to direct that traffic to your project, it’s spam and they don’t allow it.

Your posts get radically fewer views if you publish after months than if you post three days in a row. And when they give you very few views, a popup asks you “Do you want to buy advertising?”.

Well, let me spell it: N-O, no, nope, no way. "Pues va a ser que no".

AND NOW WHAT?

I’m working on the procedural boss quests. I already have the logic outlined, and I’m implementing it in code. After that, I’ll have to make the graphics.

I’m also trying to reach player communities to get feedback on what kinds of features they would value most to stay entertained in the game daily.

In general, I’m looking to increase the number of daily players and the time invested.

At the same time, I keep writing. There is already a lot written for the second part of the main story.

We stay in touch! Thank you for reading!