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The GrottoThe Grotto

The all-in-one platform for indie game developers and digital creators to build, share, and monetize their creations.

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    Product Updates

    Weekly release notes from The Grotto

    A public weekly snapshot of the most important improvements shipped across The Grotto.

    Latest
    August 26, 2026 to August 27, 2026

    Explore The City in Analog Distortions

    The City is live in Analog Distortions, with a protected AURA entry flow and automatic prize delivery when you explore.

    Published August 27, 2026

    Analog Distortions

    Where to explore

    AURA + live terms

    Entry

    Automatic

    Prize delivery

    Top Highlights

    Open The City from Analog Distortions when you are ready to spend AURA on an Explore.
    Your entry checks the current terms and your cooldown before it asks your wallet to confirm a payment.
    Recent explores are visible in the live activity feed, and completed prize delivery is recorded with each result.

    A live City, with a safer way in

    The City is ready from the Analog Distortions hub, where each Explore checks live entry terms and delivery readiness before payment.

    • Open Analog Distortions and choose The City when you want to enter an Explore with AURA.
    • The entry flow confirms the current payment terms and cooldown before it sends a wallet request.
    • After an Explore completes, follow the result and prize-delivery record in the activity feed.
    Archive
    August 25, 2026 to August 25, 2026

    Watch trailers while you browse Featured Games

    Featured Games can now play creators' uploaded trailers, so you can get a feel for a game before opening its page.

    Published August 25, 2026

    Trailer playback

    Featured Games

    Uploaded promo videos

    Creator media

    While you browse

    Where to watch

    Top Highlights

    Select Trailer from a featured game's media strip to watch its uploaded promo video without leaving the browse experience.
    Use the media choices to move between a game's banner, artwork, screenshots, and trailer before deciding what to play.
    Creators' public promo videos now reach players through the same Featured Games view.

    A quicker look at featured games

    Featured Games now lets you watch a trailer in the media strip, alongside the art and screenshots already there.

    • Select Trailer for a featured game when you want a preview before opening its page.
    • The player keeps browsing in place, so you can compare a trailer with the game's artwork and screenshots.
    • Public promo videos uploaded by creators are available to players from the Featured Games view.
    Archive
    August 24, 2026 to August 24, 2026

    Find a game jam, then get to work

    Game Jams now has a Browse view with search and status filters, plus a guided route for hosting a jam.

    Published August 24, 2026

    Search + status filters

    Jam discovery

    Browse + My Jams

    Your workspace

    Guided setup

    Hosting

    Top Highlights

    Start on Browse to scan current game jams, then search by title, theme, or description.
    Filter by a jam's status when you want to focus on upcoming, active, voting, or finished competitions.
    If you are hosting, use the guided creation route and find the jams you run in My Jams.

    A better place to find a game jam

    Game Jams now separates discovering competitions from the work of running one, so each task has a clearer home.

    • Browse starts with the public directory, where search and status filters narrow the list without leaving the page.
    • Use My Jams after signing in to move from the directory to the competitions you host.
    • When you want to host, the creation route guides the initial setup instead of putting every field in one long page.
    Archive
    August 23, 2026 to August 23, 2026

    Your Library Keeps Saved And Recently Played Games Handy

    Your Library now keeps free games you save on the shelf and adds a Recently played view, so it is easier to return to the games you want to play.

    Published August 23, 2026

    Back on your shelf

    Saved free games

    Newest first

    Recently played

    Shelf and list

    Library views

    Top Highlights

    Find free games you have saved alongside the games you own, with a label that makes saved games clear.
    Use the Saved free games filter with search and tags to narrow your shelf without leaving the Library.
    Open Recently played to see every game you have played, including free games you opened directly, ordered from newest to oldest.

    Keep Your Game Library Closer To How You Play

    The Library now combines the games you save with the games you own, then gives recently played games their own view when you want to pick up where you left off.

    • Saved free games stay visible on the shelf instead of disappearing because they do not have a paid pass.
    • Choose the Saved free games filter when you want to browse just those games, while keeping search and tags available.
    • Switch to Recently played for a newest-first list that includes owned games, saved free games, and free games you opened directly.
    Archive
    August 21, 2026 to August 21, 2026

    See Which Games Lead Right Now And All Time

    Top Games now lets you switch between the games leading recent activity and the games with the most qualified plays across their full lifetime.

    Published August 21, 2026

    Recent + all time

    Top Games views

    Lifetime qualified plays

    All-time ranking

    Server ranked

    Ranking source

    Top Highlights

    Switch between Recent and All time without losing the current activity view.
    See all-time leaders ranked by lifetime qualified plays, with the metric shown alongside each game.
    Keep ranking context clear: recent activity and lifetime performance remain separate views instead of a blended list.

    Compare What Is Popular Now With What Has Lasted

    Top Games now gives you two clearly scoped views, so you can choose between the games drawing qualified activity lately and the games with the strongest lifetime record.

    • Use Recent to see the current ranking without changing the way it is calculated.
    • Choose All time to see a separately server-ranked list based on lifetime qualified plays.
    • Read the metric with each list so a game's recent momentum is never confused with its all-time performance.
    Archive
    August 18, 2026 to August 18, 2026

    Buy More Game Passes In One Checkout

    When a game offers paid access, you can now choose how many Game Passes to mint and see the full total before completing one transaction.

    Published August 18, 2026

    Buyer-controlled

    Purchase quantity

    One transaction

    Checkout

    Shown up front

    Total

    Top Highlights

    Choose the number of Game Passes you want instead of repeating a one-pass checkout.
    Use the quantity controls to adjust your purchase, with limits that respect the remaining supply for limited collections.
    See the complete HERESY and estimated dollar total for your selected quantity before you confirm the transaction.

    Choose The Passes You Need Before You Check Out

    Paid Game Passes now support a quantity that you set before minting, so a single transaction can cover the passes you intend to buy.

    • Type a quantity or use the controls beside a paid game's Game Pass button to set the number of passes you want.
    • For a limited collection, the quantity stays within the passes that are still available.
    • Your transaction uses the exact total for the selected quantity, with the total shown before you approve it in your wallet.
    Archive
    August 13, 2026 to August 14, 2026

    Games And Social Now Do More Of The Finding For You

    Games now start with recommendations shaped by your activity, while Social keeps its For You feed in a more relevant order with clear reasons for what appears.

    Published August 14, 2026

    Recommended

    Games starting view

    Personalized

    Social feed

    Explained

    Recommendation context

    Top Highlights

    Games now opens on Recommended, using your signed-in activity when it is available while keeping popular and discovery paths available for fresh exploration.
    Game cards can explain the signal behind a recommendation, so you have more context before deciding what to open next.
    Social preserves the personalized For You order instead of reshuffling it by time, and keeps Feed and Following in their familiar chronological views.

    Find Your Next Game With Better Context

    Game discovery now starts with a ranking that can use your signed-in activity, while still leaving every familiar way to browse within reach.

    • Recommended is now the starting view in Games, bringing personalized signals together with a wider discovery path when your history is still growing.
    • Recommendation reasons on game cards make it clearer whether current player interest, your activity, or another useful signal helped bring a game forward.
    • Popular, newest, rating, genre, license, and verification options remain available whenever you want to steer the browse yourself.

    Keep Social's For You Feed Relevant

    The For You feed now keeps the personalized order it receives, so relevant activity is not lost to a later timestamp sort.

    • For You can account for the creators and kinds of activity you engage with, while continuing to leave room for worthwhile discovery.
    • Feed and Following stay chronological, so the views you use for recent activity continue to behave as expected.
    • When there is not enough personal history yet, recommendations still provide a useful discovery-oriented starting point instead of an empty experience.
    Archive
    August 11, 2026 to August 12, 2026

    Creators Have A Clearer Home, And Your Library Has A New Shelf

    Creator Hub now brings a game's performance, next steps, and trusted earnings evidence into one place, while Library gives every player a more capable way to explore what they own.

    Published August 12, 2026

    One canonical home

    Creator workspace

    Source-backed

    Earnings evidence

    Live for everyone

    Library shelf

    Top Highlights

    Creator Hub is now the single home for managing your games, with a selected-game view that keeps performance, priorities, product controls, license evidence, and Critic context close together.
    Creator earnings now keep verified contract revenue, protocol fees, minted supply, and wallet-attributed totals distinct, so unavailable or non-transferable data is not presented as a balance you can claim.
    Library has graduated into its full shelf experience, where you can browse owned games, editions, assets, and packs by collection with search, list view, keyboard and touch navigation, and safer artwork fallbacks.

    Run Your Games From One Creator Hub

    The former dashboard now redirects to Creator Hub, which organizes your creator workflow around the game you need to act on.

    • Choose a game to see its current performance snapshot, prioritized next move, product management, licensing evidence, and Critic context without losing the detailed views when you need them.
    • Creator earnings make the difference between verified contract revenue, protocol fees, minted supply, and wallet-attributed lifetime totals clear instead of filling gaps with a number that cannot be supported.
    • Creator Hub stays useful across loading, empty, and unavailable states, so the page can show what is known and what still needs attention without hiding the rest of your work.

    Explore What You Own On The New Library Shelf

    Library is now the permanent home for the Shelf, bringing your games and collectibles into a single, production-ready collection view.

    • Browse games, editions, ERC-721s, assets, and asset packs by collection, with names and counts resolved from the sources that can actually provide them.
    • Use search, list view, saved view preferences, keyboard arrows, or swipe gestures to move through your collection in the way that feels natural on your device.
    • Artwork failures fall back cleanly and motion respects your reduced-motion preference, so collection browsing stays dependable when an item needs extra care.
    Archive
    July 31, 2026 to August 8, 2026

    Moving Between Chains And Getting Around On Mobile Got Easier

    Bridge now starts with a simpler way to move HERESY across supported networks, while a new mobile dock keeps the places you use most within easier reach.

    Published August 8, 2026

    Simplified

    Bridge starting point

    2

    Bridge modes

    Thumb-friendly

    Mobile navigation

    Top Highlights

    Bridge and Wallet now open with Simple mode, where you can choose a dollar or coin amount before moving HERESY between supported networks.
    Advanced mode keeps the multichain router alongside the established Avalanche C-Chain routes for USDC and BOB, so existing paths remain available when you need more control.
    On mobile, a bottom dock puts Games, Market, Crowdfund, Social, Account, and More within thumb reach, with direct shortcuts to the rest of the app.

    Choose The Bridge Flow That Fits Your Experience

    The public Bridge and Wallet Bridge tab now begin with a more approachable route while preserving the established advanced options.

    • Simple mode lets you enter the amount you want to move in dollars or in the selected coin before buying HERESY or cashing out across supported networks.
    • The bridge makes its network costs and Grotto fee visible before a transfer, so the amount you enter has clearer context.
    • When you need the full set of controls, Advanced mode keeps the multichain router and the existing Avalanche C-Chain corridors for USDC and BOB together in one place.

    Use More Of Grotto Without Stretching Across The Screen

    Mobile navigation now puts the app's main destinations and account actions closer to where your thumb naturally rests.

    • The new bottom dock keeps Games, Market, Crowdfund, and Social one tap away, then groups personal actions under Account and broader destinations under More.
    • Account and More open compact trays for Wallet, profile, messages, Creator Hub, Library, Bridge, livestreams, and other frequent destinations without crowding the main dock.
    • The desktop header remains unchanged, while mobile pages gain a navigation layout designed around smaller screens and safer touch targets.
    Archive
    July 29, 2026 to July 30, 2026

    Market Collections Are Clearer And Easier To Explore

    Market now gives every collection a ready name, dependable artwork, and a clear reason for its position, so you can browse and choose what to explore with confidence.

    Published July 30, 2026

    73

    Collections with ready details

    Explained

    Collection ranking

    More reliable

    Market browsing

    Top Highlights

    Market collection cards now arrive with their real names and artwork, making it easier to recognize creators and collections at a glance.
    Each collection can explain whether recent sales, marketplace activity, or its latest item placed it in the current order.
    Collection details stay truthful while data is arriving or temporarily unavailable, instead of showing a misleading placeholder.

    Browse Collections With Better Context

    The collection rail now makes both identity and discovery signals easier to trust before you open a collection.

    • Every current Market collection has a ready name and a dependable artwork path, so a real collection no longer blends into generic cards or broken images.
    • Ranking context on each card shows the kind of recent activity behind its position, helping you understand what is drawing attention right now.
    • When a detail cannot be confirmed yet, Market says so clearly and keeps the rest of the browse experience available.
    Archive
    July 27, 2026 to July 29, 2026

    BOB Is Live To Explore, Trade, And Bridge

    Bob's Petroleum is now live across Grotto, with a dedicated token page, active Cave liquidity, and a direct BOB route between The Grotto and Avalanche C-Chain.

    Published July 29, 2026

    $BOB

    New token

    Cave

    Live market

    Grotto ↔ C-Chain

    Bridge route

    Top Highlights

    Find Bob's Petroleum from Home and Crowdfund, then use its token page to follow the live market, connected game, and pool activity.
    BOB now has active Cave liquidity and its chart reads the pool's real trading history, so its price and market-cap views have data from the market where it trades.
    Wallet now includes a direct BOB bridge between The Grotto and Avalanche C-Chain, giving holders a supported way to move the same asset between its native and wrapped networks.

    A New Game Token Has A Complete Home

    BOB connects the Bob's Petroleum game and its live market in the places players and holders already use.

    • The Home spotlight and Crowdfund release card make it easier to find BOB alongside Bob's Petroleum, with a direct path to the token and game.
    • The BOB token page brings together the live Cave market, chart, liquidity, connected game, and token information instead of leaving the release as an isolated listing.
    • When you need to move BOB between networks, Wallet's dedicated route explains the native-versus-wrapped transfer and keeps the asset selected in either direction.
    Archive
    July 26, 2026 to July 27, 2026

    Your Paid Games Are Easier To Find And Play

    Paid games you own now appear in Wallet as Game Passes with their game details, keeping play access separate from creator assets and packs.

    Published July 27, 2026

    Game Passes

    Paid-game licenses

    Clearer

    Wallet organization

    Protected

    Post-purchase access

    Top Highlights

    A paid game license now stays with Game Passes in Wallet instead of appearing as a generic asset or pack.
    Each license carries the game name, description, artwork, and play destination needed to recognize what you bought.
    Game Passes remain separate from asset packs and creator assets, so your playable purchases are easier to find after checkout.

    Purchased Games Stay With Your Play Access

    Wallet now treats a paid-game license as the play entitlement it is, rather than as an unrelated piece of creator inventory.

    • When you buy a game, its license now appears under Game Passes with the title, art, and game information that identify your purchase.
    • The Wallet keeps those playable entitlements out of Asset Packs and Assets, reducing the chance that a purchased game is lost among work you collect or create.
    • This clearer separation makes it easier to return to a game you own and manage its license from the right part of your Wallet.
    Archive
    July 18, 2026 to July 25, 2026

    Market Discovery Got Easier

    The Market now brings eligible assets and packs into one continuously loading browse experience, so you can discover more of the catalog without switching between separate results or stopping to manually load each page.

    Published July 25, 2026

    Unified

    Market browse experience

    2

    Catalog types together

    Removed

    Manual pagination

    Top Highlights

    Eligible assets and packs now appear together in one consistently ordered Market feed, making it easier to explore what is available in a single place.
    More results load as you browse, with a clear end state instead of a visible manual Load more interruption.
    Market counts and collection context now follow the same discovery rules as the results you see, so browsing signals stay more consistent.

    One Market Feed For More To Explore

    The Market now keeps eligible assets and packs together while making larger catalogs easier to browse.

    • Assets and eligible packs are now ordered together in the same Market results, so you do not have to piece together separate catalog views to discover available work.
    • The result grid continues as you scroll and lets you know when you have reached the end, reducing the stop-and-start of manual pagination.
    • Collection context and Market totals now use the same discovery scope as the grid, giving you a more coherent view while exploring.
    Archive
    July 5, 2026 to July 18, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    The Grotto can now catch you up on only the releases worth your attention, give first visits a clearer purpose, make social activity more expressive, and add safer controls around publishing and on-chain actions.

    Published July 18, 2026

    127

    Merged changes reviewed

    2

    Core repos shipped

    5

    Major product themes

    Top Highlights

    Returning users can now get a short Welcome Back walkthrough for only the major capabilities released while they were away, after first-visit onboarding is complete.
    First visits now begin with a real Play, Publish, or Browse path, while wallet funding and trade surfaces are clearer on both desktop and mobile.
    Realtime notifications, rich-media replies, exact comment sharing, and immutable polls make social activity more immediate and expressive.

    The Big Updates Now Meet You When You Return

    A new Welcome Back walkthrough makes meaningful releases discoverable without turning every login into a changelog.

    • Grotto now compares a private, server-confirmed previous activity boundary with exact release times and considers only major updates that landed while you were away.
    • Start Here always keeps priority for first visits, and the first post-launch visit establishes a clean baseline instead of guessing about old activity.
    • Eligible tours are coordinated across tabs, limited to three slides, and stay dismissed after you finish, skip, close, or follow the update link.
    • Routine fixes, performance work, migrations, security changes, visual polish, internal tools, and backend-only work are explicitly ineligible for these popups.

    First Visits And Wallets Got Clearer

    Newcomers and returning wallet users now reach the action they actually intended with less explanation and less duplicated interface.

    • The first-visit flow now starts with Play a free game, Publish a game, or Browse the market, each connected to a real destination instead of a generic feature slideshow.
    • The homepage keeps The Grotto's welcome, logo, and slot-machine identity while using a focused Start Here rail on desktop and a cleaner, less crowded mobile layout.
    • Empty-wallet guidance distinguishes card funding, linked wallets, Grotto balances, C-Chain balances, and network-specific receive paths, then resumes the original action after MoonPay.
    • The wallet now presents one consolidated balance hero and one compact Swap or Bridge surface, with clearer network breakdowns, receive addresses, deep links, and mobile tabs.

    Social Feels More Live And More Expressive

    Replies, votes, notifications, and commerce activity now carry more context and update with less manual refreshing.

    • Authenticated notifications can update in realtime with reconnect, replay, polling fallback, exact action targets, richer categories, and grouped creator earnings.
    • Comments and nested replies can carry GIFs, images, video, music, livestreams, AI images, and supported uploads, including embed-only replies.
    • Exact replies can be shared with stable deep links, and posts, replies, reviews, and comments can be submitted with Command or Control plus Enter.
    • Native polls now work across posts, comments, replies, profiles, and compact rails, with immutable votes, authoritative result bars, and viewer-safe state.

    Publishing, Spending, And Live Actions Got Safer

    Important creator and on-chain workflows now make their real state clearer before users commit time, credits, or funds.

    • The Creator Hub now focuses on source-backed game, asset, pack, retention, session, and product-health performance with real management destinations.
    • Wallet balance selection and verified swap coverage were expanded so trade surfaces are less likely to quote from the wrong account or route.
    • Analog bridge, stake, unstake, and marketplace actions now separate intent more clearly and verify live ownership or receipt state before reporting success.
    • The City now checks delivery readiness and confirmed entry receipts before accepting paid explores, while describing unavailable live data honestly.
    Archive
    June 28, 2026 to July 5, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week was a reliability push for The Grotto: social and notification flows became easier to follow, core data moved toward durable Postgres storage, and game delivery gained safer object-storage foundations.

    Published July 5, 2026

    129

    Merged changes reviewed

    2

    Core repos shipped

    6

    Major product themes

    Top Highlights

    Notifications and social replies became more dependable, including better routing, read-state persistence, cleaner reply actions, and less typing friction in the social gutter.
    The backend made a major durability move toward Postgres-backed identity, profiles, favorites, reviews, forums, events, leaderboards, comments, direct messages, support, livestreams, and more.
    Game and media delivery are being prepared for a volume-less future with object storage mirroring, bucket fallbacks, private-build serving, stateless play sessions, and safer public asset handling.

    Social And Notifications Feel Cleaner

    Everyday communication flows received targeted fixes so people land in the right place and see more trustworthy state.

    • Notification clicks now route from the backend action target and avoid stale unread-state issues.
    • Read-state changes persist more durably when notification reads come from Postgres-backed paths.
    • The social gutter now matches the main social composer more closely, with cleaner reply/comment actions and less typing jank.
    • Activity subject IDs were canonicalized across the backend so notification routing is more consistent.

    Core Data Became More Durable

    A large backend migration moved many important experiences away from fragile local files and toward Postgres-backed state.

    • Usernames, account registry data, profiles, favorites, reviews, forums, leaderboards, reputation, follows, notifications, and activity likes all gained Postgres-backed or Postgres-preferred paths.
    • Direct messages, game jams, livestream registries, support tickets, review reactions, blogs, comments, launchpad records, marketplace data, HERESY chat, and operations records were moved onto mirrored or canonical database stores.
    • Projection builders, stale-state invalidation, last-known-good fallbacks, boot warming, and outbox observability were added so read models can recover more gracefully.
    • Concurrency fixes now serialize long-tail read-modify-write paths and prevent a class of duplicate or clobbered writes.

    Game Delivery Is Moving Off Fragile Volumes

    The backend now has more of the storage and serving foundation needed for faster, more reliable game and media access.

    • Public assets can be mirrored to object storage, served with cache controls, and redirected through bucket-backed delivery instead of pushing every byte through the origin.
    • Private game builds can be mirrored, backfilled, served from buckets, and accessed through stateless play-session tokens.
    • Bucket fallbacks now cover private games, token-gated downloads, launch assets, uploads, collection drafts, avatars, and collection media when the local volume is absent.
    • Static serving added a deny-by-default allowlist, guardrails, body limits, load shedding, readiness checks, and safer defaults around public file access.

    Hot Paths Got Faster And Safer

    Several high-traffic backend paths now do less expensive work while preserving more accurate user-visible data.

    • Game browse, profile, playtime, platform stats, reviews, leaderboards, favorites, and activity feeds gained faster cached, aggregate, or database-backed read paths.
    • Guardrails now key rate limits more safely, contain slow requests, and apply method-aware deadlines without breaking normal browse traffic.
    • Volume-less profile and game-stat fallbacks were added to avoid clobbering ratings, play data, and profile fields during infrastructure transitions.
    Archive
    June 21, 2026 to June 28, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week made search and activity more relevant, let creators test unpublished draft games before launch, and tightened wallet, recovery, moderation, and live NFT reliability across The Grotto.

    Published June 28, 2026

    58

    Merged changes reviewed

    2

    Core repos shipped

    6

    Major product themes

    Top Highlights

    Search, ranking, notifications, and live activity became faster and more relevant, including typo-tolerant game search and reputation-aware ranking foundations.
    Creators can test their own unpublished draft games before launch, and moderators/operators gained safer recovery and account-repair tools.

    Search, Ranking, And Activity Improved

    Finding games and following activity should feel faster, more forgiving, and more useful.

    • Game search gained typo-tolerant fuzzy matching and a Postgres-backed projection that can self-populate for more resilient results.
    • A new reputation and centralized ranking foundation gives the platform a cleaner way to sort games by quality signals over time.
    • The live activity ticker does less unnecessary work, helping active pages stay responsive while still showing fresh movement.
    • Like notifications now open the correct post, and notification/feed paths were tightened so social activity feels less brittle.

    Draft Games Are Easier To Test

    Creators and moderators now have a cleaner path from private draft to playable launch.

    • Creators can play their own unpublished draft games without making them public first.
    • Backend license checks now honor free-access overrides, and the frontend adds a free-access toggle for paid games when that is the intended setup.
    • The runtime gained built-in leaderboard client helpers for score submission and leaderboard reads, giving generated games a simpler way to hook into Grotto systems.
    • A one-shot cloud-save backfill hook supports the production migration path for durable game runtime data.

    Wallets, Recovery, And Analog Reliability Tightened

    Several focused fixes reduced edge-case friction around accounts, HERESY actions, and live NFT reads.

    • HERESY max-spend actions now keep a smaller native gas reserve, so people can use more of their balance while still leaving room for the transaction.
    • Account recovery tooling now supports dry runs, tolerates incidental malformed JSON, and can rerun idempotently.
    • Live ERC-721 inventory reads now cap RPC log chunks to stay under Avalanche RPC limits, improving Analog Distortions ownership checks.
    • Unnecessary GitHub Actions runs were reduced across the frontend and backend so shipping work creates less background noise.
    Archive
    June 21, 2026 to June 21, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This short follow-up keeps the June 21 weekly update current with clearer outage handling and cleaner creator recommendations.

    Published June 21, 2026

    4

    Merged changes reviewed

    2

    Core repos shipped

    3

    Focused product themes

    Top Highlights

    Grotto now detects backend outages as outages instead of asking signed-in people to claim a username they may already have.
    Suggested Creators filters out malformed, placeholder, and content-less creator records so discovery stays focused on real creators.

    Outages Are Clearer

    When the backend is unreachable, the app now tells people what is happening instead of sending them into the wrong setup flow.

    • Profile loading now treats network and server failures differently from a real missing username, preventing confusing username prompts during outages.
    • A shared reachability monitor powers the connection status and a full-screen offline state, so people get a consistent signal when Grotto needs the backend to recover.
    • Protected actions now wait for the profile check to succeed before deciding whether someone needs onboarding.

    Creator Discovery Got Cleaner

    Suggested Creators should now show fewer junk rows and more real people worth following.

    • Malformed addresses, burn addresses, all-Fs placeholders, and zero-address records are rejected before they can pollute follow data.
    • Suggested Creator ranking now requires real published creator activity instead of promoting empty follow-only records.
    • Cleanup tooling was added for existing junk follow records so the backend can repair old bad data safely.
    Archive
    June 15, 2026 to June 21, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week made The Grotto faster and steadier on busy paths while polishing marketplace, search, social, responsive layouts, Analog Distortions, and everyday creator and collector details.

    Published June 21, 2026

    94

    Merged pull requests reviewed

    2

    Core repos shipped

    6

    Major product themes

    Top Highlights

    The app and backend are faster and steadier on hot paths, including profile pages, avatars, activity polling, games lists, platform stats, search projections, and market hero loading.
    Marketplace, search, social, desktop, Analog Distortions, and composer details all received focused polish so everyday browsing and creation feel cleaner.

    The Platform Got Faster On Busy Paths

    Several high-traffic reads now avoid wasteful repeat work, expensive fallbacks, and avoidable loading delays.

    • Profile pages now reuse server-fetched profile data on first load instead of immediately fetching the same profile again on the client.
    • Avatar thumbnails avoid guaranteed 404 requests for users known to have no avatar, and the global activity ticker polls less aggressively while staying fresh enough for people to read.
    • The backend now guards against empty projection rebuilds wiping out read models, and platform stats build filesystem fallbacks lazily only when they are genuinely needed.
    • Games-list activity scans now share a stable cache key and refresh in the background, reducing request-thread filesystem work during busy traffic.
    • Marketplace hero loading, featured metadata, asset names, card consistency, and audio controls were tightened so market browsing reaches useful content sooner.

    Search, Discovery, And Social Polish Improved

    Common navigation and discovery moments now return better matches and cleaner UI states.

    • Unified search now handles accent-insensitive matching and multi-token prefixes more reliably, while title-prefix matches outrank weaker metadata hits.
    • Frontend destination search now treats short queries as prefixes instead of broad substring matches, reducing surprising route suggestions.
    • Desktop rails and gutters received smoother scroll-aware behavior, consistent full social rail treatment, clearer toggle glyphs, and better use of the left utility space.
    • Composer emoji controls were added and polished for desktop posts and DMs, with cursor-aware insertion, cleaner icon placement, and a larger emoji library.
    • Sign-in language replaced more wallet-first prompts across the app, keeping the auth experience friendlier for people who do not think in wallet plumbing.

    Creator And Collector Details Were Tightened

    Focused fixes made game prices, Analog Distortions ownership, and marketplace details easier to trust.

    • Game prices now display from live HERESY value while keeping the on-chain HERESY amount as the source of truth on purchase and sale surfaces.
    • Analog Distortions ownership views now include linked-wallet and staked NFTs, and a duplicate dropdown entry was removed.
    • Asset detail pages, featured market heroes, pack and asset cards, badges, shimmer states, and audio playback all received targeted polish.
    • The June 15 Pixel Canvas update remains preserved as its own short post, and this entry covers only the new work merged after that publish cutoff.
    Archive
    June 15, 2026 to June 15, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This short follow-up update makes Pixel Canvas more forgiving during busy painting sessions, so quick bursts of creativity are less likely to disappear when the server briefly slows down.

    Published June 15, 2026

    1

    Merged pull requests reviewed

    2

    Core repos reviewed

    1

    Major product theme

    Top Highlights

    Pixel Canvas now keeps optimistic strokes queued through retryable timeout, rate-limit, and bucket-refresh responses instead of rolling back the whole stroke.
    Queued paint retries after the refresh window, giving pixels a better chance to persist as the server catches up.
    Paint requests now tolerate short backend slowdowns during burst painting, reducing the chance that a fast drawing session turns into lost work.

    Pixel Canvas Painting Is More Resilient

    Fast painting should feel steadier when the canvas is under load or briefly waiting on server capacity.

    • Strokes stay visible while retryable server responses are handled, instead of being immediately removed from the canvas.
    • The paint queue now waits for the next bucket refresh and retries queued pixels so temporary limits do not punish a whole drawing gesture.
    • Canvas requests have a little more time to complete during burst activity, helping busy sessions recover from short slowdowns.
    Archive
    June 7, 2026 to June 14, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week turned livestreaming into a real Grotto surface, made more pages feel instant and honest while they load, and tightened the platform underneath so creators and players can move through the app with more confidence.

    Published June 14, 2026

    52

    Merged pull requests reviewed

    2

    Core repos shipped

    6

    Major product themes

    Top Highlights

    Livestreams now have a public directory, watch rooms, chat, viewer counts, OBS-friendly setup, username watch links, and richer player states instead of blank or stale embeds.
    The app now shows layout-matched loading skeletons, stronger error states, more faithful social preview images, and safer retry flows across major pages.
    Social identity feels more alive with app-wide profile hover cards, better Suggested Creators avatars, fresher hover stats, and clearer Online Now presence.
    Game-token flywheels now support one token powering multiple games, while keeping one-token-per-game protections and safer deployment/runbook tooling.
    Backend hardening improved API errors, rate limits, security checks, search and catalog hot paths, read-model fallbacks, and livestream media reliability.

    Livestreams Became A First-Class Surface

    Creators can go live with a more complete setup, and viewers now get a real room to watch, chat, react, and follow along.

    • The new Live experience adds a public `/live` directory, watch pages, stream cards, target-aware live panels, and livestream awareness across games, tokens, profiles, activity, tickers, headers, and desktop rails.
    • Managed livestreams now detect active OBS/RTMPS feeds, expose safer setup status, require verified creator profiles, capture temporary thumbnails, and keep ingest secrets out of public responses.
    • Watch rooms gained chat, viewer counts, guest or profile-attributed messages, popout chat, replies, reactions, emoji, tip placement, fullscreen controls, and a wider desktop layout.
    • Player states now avoid stale provider pages and raw source links, replacing them with branded offline, waiting, preparing, reconnecting, and unsupported-browser states.
    • Public livestream links now use readable `/live/@username` paths while the APIs continue resolving stable stream IDs behind the scenes.

    Pages Load And Recover More Honestly

    Navigation, failures, and previews now give users clearer feedback instead of misleading empty states or generic cards.

    • Dozens of route-level loading states now use page-shaped skeletons, so navigation paints faster and swaps into final content with less layout jump.
    • Games, tokens, profiles, markets, auctions, jams, collections, library, wallet, social, notifications, leaderboards, gallery, and creator surfaces gained clearer error and recovery states.
    • Social preview images now use Grotto's real branding, type, nav, live data, and route-specific layouts, with safer fallbacks when a live lookup fails.
    • Optimistic follow, save, review, search, pending-transaction, unsaved-change, and draft-persistence improvements make common actions feel less brittle.
    • Accessibility and responsive polish improved icon labels, dialog titles, mobile controls, text wrapping, scroll behavior, and keyboard/focus handling across many surfaces.

    Social Identity And Presence Got Richer

    People and activity are easier to recognize across the app, with fewer stale or generic profile states.

    • App-wide profile hover cards now show public profile context, stats, mutuals, and follow/edit/view actions across social, notifications, leaderboards, reviews, forums, follows, and creator rows.
    • @username mentions now render as inline profile chips through enriched content, making posts and replies feel more connected to real Grotto identities.
    • Hover cards now hydrate follower and following counts from fresher stats data instead of freezing at zero when only partial cached profile data is available.
    • Suggested Creators now resolve normalized avatar fallbacks and backend-local tiny avatar paths so real profile pictures appear more reliably.
    • Online Now now understands presence freshness, partial/stale/updating states, history labels, and active livestream badge rules so live indicators better match reality.

    Game-Token Flywheels Became More Flexible

    Creators can connect one token across more of a game ecosystem while the system keeps safer pairing rules.

    • A token can now be paired with multiple games, with normalized linked-game metadata and per-game token pairs that preserve legacy linked-game compatibility.
    • The backend still enforces one token per game while buyback, registry, and welcome-package workers track state at the token-game pair level.
    • Frontend token and game surfaces now understand multi-game pairings, linked-game selectors, linked-game cards, and the updated API contracts.
    • A secure deploy wrapper and updated runbooks make game-token flywheel deployment safer by prompting for secrets through a hidden terminal flow and clearing them afterward.
    • Migrated game license entitlements now preserve legacy license access while keeping active license contracts as the source of truth for sales and flywheel behavior.

    Desktop And Discovery Were Tuned

    The wide-screen shell, homepage story, create flows, and discovery reads all got sharper.

    • Desktop rails now balance around a centered 55vw main shell, align below the live ticker, keep equal gutter spacing, and stay hidden on routes where the wide content view matters more.
    • The left utility rail now mirrors the community links and create actions people expect from Social, including Pixel Canvas, Forums, Suggested Creators, Recent Follows, New Users, Upload a Game, Create an Asset, and Launch a Crowdfund.
    • The homepage gained a clearer roadmap infographic and copy explaining the core Grotto loop from playing and making games to contributing assets, launching crowdfunds, trading, and joining events.
    • Create actions now keep their page-specific intent for games, market, crowdfunds, and jams while still exposing alternate creation options from shared menus.
    • Featured game discovery now uses lighter games-list reads when playtime enrichment is not needed, improving responsiveness for homepage and featured sections.

    The Platform Underneath Got Safer And Faster

    A broad backend pass improved security, consistency, hot-path speed, and production resilience.

    • API errors now return structured JSON, several sensitive routes gained stronger auth or internal-key gates, and translation, play, sprite, upload, follow, tip, debug, metadata, and comment paths received targeted hardening.
    • Public search, games-list ETags, token listings, collections, bundles, charts, moderation config, asset catalogs, pack catalogs, and translation calls all received hot-path or cache improvements.
    • Read-model projections now fall back to filesystem data when an empty projected snapshot would otherwise hide real platform stats or catalog entries.
    • Dual-write ordering, Postgres mirrors, worker shutdown, presence snapshots, stale session cleanup, leaderboard writes, and read-model projection jobs are more resilient.
    • Health hotspot reporting now respects the requested time window, making recent latency triage more trustworthy instead of letting old spikes dominate current rankings.
    Archive
    May 31, 2026 to June 6, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week made The Grotto feel more complete for creators building a universe around their work and steadier for players browsing, trading, following, and returning day after day.

    Published June 6, 2026

    154

    Merged pull requests reviewed

    2

    Core repos shipped

    6

    Major product themes

    Top Highlights

    Creators now have a unified Create hub and a game-paired crowdfund token path that ties paid game sales, token launches, buyback settings, and post-publish next steps together.
    Profiles and social surfaces now carry more identity and market context, including profile Social tabs, public read-only feeds, richer token embeds, and safer reply moderation.
    Crowdfund and token browsing became easier to read with volume-first sorting, clearer card metrics, anchored token info, and fewer confusing refresh flashes.
    Large-screen users now get a stronger desktop shell with persistent social/utility rails that stay out of the way of core pages, live tickers, and footers.
    Platform reliability work reduced cold public-read latency, exposed public API health signals, and made backend admin operations safer and more maintainable.

    Screenshots

    The Grotto Create hub showing grouped creator actions for publishing games, launching market items, and creating community content.

    A Clearer Create Hub

    The new Create hub gathers publishing, market, crowdfund, social, and event actions in one place instead of scattering creator entry points across the app.

    Crowdfund token discovery page with token cards, volume-oriented metrics, and visible token rows.

    Cleaner Token Discovery

    Crowdfund pages now keep settled rows visible during refreshes and emphasize current market cap, 24h volume, holders, and search/sort controls.

    A wide desktop Grotto page with persistent utility and social rails beside the central content.

    Desktop Social Rails

    Wide screens now use persistent utility and social rails for presence, follows, and quick actions while preserving the central browsing surface.

    Public API health dashboard with uptime markers, latency cards, and endpoint health summaries.

    Public Health Visibility

    The backend now exposes a public-safe health dashboard so uptime and latency issues are easier to spot and resolve.

    Creator Launches Are More Connected

    The path from building a game to launching a token-backed ecosystem is now more coherent.

    • A new `/create` hub gives creators one organized place to start games, NFT collections, editions, packs, crowdfunds, posts, game jams, auctions, bundles, and future livestream work.
    • Create entry points across navigation, wallet menus, search, dashboard, footer, game pages, market pages, crowdfund pages, and game jams now converge on that hub instead of competing with each other.
    • Game publishing can now pair paid game passes with crowdfund token launches, carrying game IDs, license addresses, buyback settings, and token-game metadata through the post-publish flow.
    • The game-token flywheel gained deployment, environment, custody, registry, chain, dry-run, and live-rehearsal guardrails so creators can get the feature without rushing unsafe buyback execution.

    Social And Profiles Carry More Context

    Players can understand creators, posts, and token chatter with less digging.

    • Profiles now have a Social tab with Posts and Replies, exact social-post counts, and backend endpoints built for profile social timelines.
    • The public social feed now loads as a read-only experience for signed-out visitors instead of waiting on wallet/auth readiness before showing activity.
    • Token links in social posts now render richer embeds with ticker, image, name, contract address, market cap, 24h volume, holder count, and recovery from stale or shortened token URLs.
    • Moderators gained reply-level deletion controls while regular public social interactions stay protected behind the existing signed-in actions.

    Crowdfund And Token Pages Read Better

    Token browsing now puts the most useful market signals closer to the surface.

    • Launchpad token cards now prioritize current market cap, 24h volume, holder count, and cleaner graduated-token metrics instead of lower-signal badges or stale progress cues.
    • Trending Memes and Projects now rank by 24h volume, and the full token lists default to volume sorting while keeping user-selectable controls.
    • The token detail layout now anchors Token Info directly below Buy/Sell, adds token and HERESY liquidity rows, and links LP pairs to the relevant explorers when available.
    • Crowdfund grids keep real rows mounted during background loading so users do not lose their place to skeleton flashes after data has already settled.

    Browsing Feels More Stable

    Several high-traffic surfaces now preserve content during refreshes instead of blinking back to loading states.

    • The homepage now starts from server-loaded data, renders partial content immediately, refreshes missing sources in the background, and defers heavy desktop rail modules off the first render.
    • Games, marketplace, crowdfund, leaderboards, notifications, and homepage featured sections now reserve skeletons for true first loads rather than every refresh or enrichment pass.
    • The Season 3 canvas page now derives its live-season badge from archived season metadata and has backend placement hardening against bot abuse.
    • Staking, onboarding, and small hook dependency fixes reduced avoidable runtime noise and made everyday surfaces less fragile.

    Wide Desktop Got A Real Shell

    The large-screen experience now uses the extra space for community context instead of empty margins.

    • A route-aware desktop shell now supports full, narrow, and hidden social-rail modes so social pages, profiles, games, markets, and reading surfaces get layouts suited to their job.
    • Persistent desktop rails bring Online Now, For You, Following, creator shortcuts, sharing, and activity cards into wide screens without taking over mobile or laptop layouts.
    • Follow-up polish tightened gutter spacing, footer stopping behavior, rail scrolling, hide controls, profile header responsiveness, and live-ticker alignment.
    • The old floating Create button was removed in favor of natural page action slots, preventing duplicate calls to action and overlap with live activity controls.

    Reliability And Operations Improved

    A large backend push made public reads faster and admin work safer.

    • Public profile, profile-social, games-list, live-activity, and HEAD game reads now avoid cold optional-auth paths where viewer identity cannot change the public response.
    • A public `/health` dashboard now shows uptime markers, latency percentiles, slow endpoints, and public-safe request summaries while preserving JSON health checks for machines.
    • Presence summaries now hide draft, scheduled, failed, and hidden games so public activity reflects playable experiences.
    • The admin backend was split into smaller route modules, destructive actions gained typed confirmations, storage/system panels became more resilient, and installer delivery can resolve current desktop releases automatically.
    Archive
    May 24, 2026 to May 31, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week focused on making The Grotto feel steadier where it matters most: wallet trading, crowdfund pages, Analog Distortions access, game discovery, social embeds, and account recovery all became easier to trust.

    Published May 31, 2026

    30

    Merged pull requests

    2

    Core repos shipped

    5

    Priority areas

    Top Highlights

    Wallet and trade flows now wait for embedded-wallet data more carefully, recover from legacy launchpad edge cases, and present swap/bridge choices in one clearer network selector.
    Crowdfund token pages now use fresher live market data, avoid stale loading flashes, and give linked games a more readable, polished presentation.
    Analog Distortions is easier to reach from navigation, supports staking admin actions, and refreshes C-Chain NFT ownership from live/indexed sources more reliably.
    Game popularity now leans on qualified engagement instead of raw play spam, while social X embeds, profile username edits, staking totals, and iframe-safe market pages all got targeted fixes.

    Wallet Trading Feels More Reliable

    The wallet is more careful about loading state, network direction, and older launchpad data.

    • Authenticated users now stay in a wallet loading state until embedded-wallet data is actually ready, reducing cold-load confusion.
    • Swap and bridge now live inside a unified Trade surface, with Cave-style source and destination network selectors for Grotto and C-Chain routes.
    • The bridge modal now shows combined network and token asset boxes, clearer imagery, and the same route and gas-reserve guardrails as before.
    • Legacy V7 launchpad pool reads and empty backend inventory states were hardened so old token data and loading gaps do not crash the wallet.

    Crowdfund Pages Became Clearer

    Token pages now show fresher activity and fewer misleading in-between states.

    • Graduation market cap now comes from the current bonding-curve constants instead of a stale hardcoded value.
    • Crowdfund cards stay in skeleton/loading states until source-of-truth data is ready, preventing old progress bars or empty states from flashing first.
    • Holder and trader panels now prefer live Cave market-data sources and refresh more often, with fallbacks still available when needed.
    • Token detail pages now give the activity table more room and promote linked games into a full-width Play the Game panel with stronger contrast and clearer calls to play.

    Analog Distortions Got Easier To Use

    Holders have better navigation and fresher inventory handling across the bridge experience.

    • Analog Distortions is now linked from both mobile navigation and the account dropdown, so holders can reach bridge, stake, unstake, and Explore The City flows without typing the URL.
    • The bridge can request live NFT inventory refreshes and merge direct chain ownership with indexed metadata, helping recent transfers appear faster.
    • C-Chain Analog Distortions ownership now reads from the Grotto indexer before falling back to other sources, with direct live ownership still available as a final safety net.
    • Backend admin tooling now supports Analog Distortions staking actions, including the token approval metadata needed for reward deposits.

    Discovery And Social Sharing Improved

    Public surfaces should better reflect real engagement and render shared content more gracefully.

    • Popular and trending game lists now use qualified engagement signals from authenticated non-creator play sessions instead of raw play-count sorting.
    • Creator plays can still support creator analytics, but public ranking now focuses more on player engagement that reflects real audience interest.
    • X posts in the social feed now render through a safer local tweet path, with a link fallback when a malformed payload cannot render cleanly.
    • Market edition pages can now be embedded by approved Grotto domains such as Bob's Petroleum while other pages remain protected from unexpected iframe use.

    Accounts, Rewards, And Profile Details Are Smoother

    Several small but high-friction account and trust issues were cleaned up.

    • Signup username claims now treat backend session syncing as a recoverable retry state, and Profile Settings now supports username edits with availability checks.
    • Username renames no longer create fake user_joined activity, and fresh profile reads avoid stale cached responses after signup or account repair.
    • Staking Total Distributed now prefers the staking indexer total and can fall back to bounded on-chain RewardsPaid events when service totals are empty.
    • Small presentation fixes, like the linked-game controller badge and stronger game-card text treatment, make high-traffic wallet and token surfaces easier to scan.
    Archive
    May 17, 2026 to May 24, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week focused on making The Grotto easier to gift, publish, browse, and trust, with cleaner creator flows, clearer marketplace pricing, fairer discovery, and stronger release operations behind the scenes.

    Published May 24, 2026

    12

    Merged pull requests

    2

    Core repos shipped

    5

    Priority areas

    Top Highlights

    Players can now gift paid game passes directly to another wallet, with richer gift cards in direct messages.
    Creators get a faster local preview path while publishing browser games, plus clearer processing states after upload.
    NFT mint and auction surfaces became easier to read, with USD pricing context and a cancel path for ended no-bid auctions.
    Game discovery, staging, and dependency health were tightened up so public experiences can ship with fewer quiet failure modes.

    Game Pass Gifting Is Live

    Paid games are easier to share with another player now.

    • Game pages now include a Gift Game Pass flow for paid releases, with recipient wallet validation and an optional personal message.
    • Players can gift by minting a new pass to someone else or by transferring an owned pass when that is available.
    • Gifted passes now appear as richer direct-message cards, making it clearer what was sent and where to open it.
    • The backend now stores structured gift metadata in DMs, so sender and recipient views stay consistent.

    Publishing Previews Feel Faster

    Creators should get better feedback while testing a new browser game upload.

    • The create-game flow can now preview uploaded browser builds locally in the browser before the backend extraction path finishes.
    • Publish success screens now keep checking pending builds so preview and play actions can unlock as soon as processing completes.
    • Processing messages were clarified so creators see a more accurate status instead of a generic missing-game state.
    • A dependency pin keeps the new local preview tooling aligned with the platform's package safety checks.

    Marketplace Pages Are Clearer

    Collectors and creators should have more context before acting.

    • NFT mint pages now show HERESY-to-USD pricing context across mint prices, totals, balances, phase cards, offers, activity rows, and listing cards.
    • Mint page alignment was cleaned up so collection details and purchase controls sit more predictably on desktop and mobile.
    • Creators can now cancel ended silent auctions that received no bids, while auctions with bids, winners, or settlement activity remain protected.
    • Auction pages now show the right creator-facing cancel action for ended no-bid auctions instead of leaving them stuck.

    Discovery Is Fairer

    Game rankings should better reflect real current activity and useful review signals.

    • Popular game rankings now treat in-window engagement as the first signal, so games without recent activity do not outrank games people are actually playing.
    • All-time plays, favorites, and ratings are now reserved as tiebreakers when period activity is comparable.
    • Highest-rated game sorting now uses review count as a tiebreaker when games have the same average rating.
    • Together, these changes make discovery lists feel less surprising and more useful for players browsing what to try next.

    Release Operations Got Safer

    Some of this week's work makes future launches easier to test and support.

    • Preview and staging environments gained a password gate and server-to-server bypass path, helping the team test safely before public release.
    • A new Sprite Lab prototype and backend generator API landed behind the staging workflow for future asset-generation experiments.
    • Backend dependencies were refreshed to clear audit issues and rebuild the checked-in admin wallet bundle against the cleaned dependency graph.
    • These changes are mostly behind the scenes, but they support smoother releases and a healthier platform foundation.
    Archive
    May 10, 2026 to May 17, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week focused on making The Grotto easier to publish on, easier to navigate, richer to share from, and more dependable in sensitive wallet, chat, and security flows.

    Published May 17, 2026

    38

    Merged pull requests

    2

    Core repos shipped

    5

    Priority areas

    Top Highlights

    Creators now get clearer publish recovery states, launch review guidance, and next-step prompts after shipping games and assets.
    Social posting became more expressive with drag-and-drop media uploads, audio and video embeds, and a more actionable notifications inbox.
    Discovery and marketplace browsing improved through shareable game filters, route-aware search, stronger empty states, and clearer creator identity on NFT surfaces.
    Wallet, runtime, and private chat flows were hardened this week, alongside a frontend security upgrade and stronger moderation support tools.

    Publishing Feels Safer And Easier To Finish

    A large share of this week went into helping creators recover cleanly when publish flows get messy.

    • Asset pages now do a better job showing publish progress and recovery states instead of leaving creators stuck in uncertain in-between states.
    • Game uploads gained a launch review step so creators can double-check key decisions before they publish.
    • Post-publish next steps are clearer, making it easier to keep moving after a launch instead of guessing what to do next.
    • Behind the scenes, upload diagnostics also improved so the team can resolve publishing issues faster when they do happen.

    Social And Notifications Carry More Context

    Sharing work and keeping up with activity should feel more natural now.

    • Social posts now support drag-and-drop media uploads, reducing friction when adding visuals to a post.
    • Audio and video embeds are now supported in more places, so creators can share richer updates without awkward workarounds.
    • The notifications inbox gained better triage filters and clearer action targets, helping users sort what matters and jump directly into the right follow-up.
    • Profile surfaces also picked up stronger relationship context, making social identity cues easier to read at a glance.

    Discovery And Marketplace Browsing Got Clearer

    Finding the right place, person, or item now has less friction across several high-traffic surfaces.

    • Game discovery filters can now be shared, making it easier to pass around curated browsing states instead of asking someone to recreate them manually.
    • Global search now includes route destinations, which should make navigation feel more direct for players who know where they want to go.
    • Marketplace and library empty states were improved so first-time or low-inventory experiences feel less confusing.
    • NFT mint and marketplace surfaces now show creator identity more clearly, giving collectors more confidence about what they are looking at.

    Creator Insights And Recovery Flows Improved

    This week also made creator-facing performance and reliability signals easier to trust.

    • Creator session analytics are now surfaced more clearly, giving developers a better view of how people are actually engaging with their work.
    • Wallet transaction recovery got more resilient, which should reduce confusion when blockchain actions do not complete cleanly on the first try.
    • Embedded game player shell recovery and runtime recovery responses were polished so players hit fewer dead ends when something goes wrong.
    • Public feeds and game metadata also became more structured, supporting clearer listing and activity experiences across the platform.

    Trust, Security, And Support Operations Tightened Up

    Some of the most important work this week was about preventing quiet failure modes and giving the team better visibility.

    • The frontend was upgraded to address a recent Next.js security issue, keeping a key platform dependency current.
    • Private chat permissions were hardened, reducing risk around access to sensitive conversations.
    • Collection naming and SVG image handling were tightened up to prevent confusing or unsafe edge cases during creation and upload flows.
    • Admin moderation diagnostics and operations status views were expanded so the team can spot and resolve platform issues faster.
    Archive
    May 3, 2026 to May 10, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week focused on making The Grotto feel fairer and easier to read, with more honest review signals, better platform stats, smarter discovery, and stronger Canvas operations.

    Published May 10, 2026

    5

    Merged pull requests

    2

    Core repos shipped

    4

    Priority areas

    Top Highlights

    The homepage now shows total hours played, giving the platform's overall activity a clearer sense of scale.
    Popular game ranking now leans more on real recent engagement, so discovery should better reflect what players are actually spending time with.
    Creators can no longer review their own games, and self-reviews no longer shape public scores, counts, or reputation surfaces.
    Canvas gained a new auto-paint workflow that helps the team bring prepared artwork onto the live board more reliably.

    Platform Stats Tell A Clearer Story

    Visitors should get a better sense of how much actual play is happening across The Grotto.

    • The homepage hero now includes total hours played alongside the existing headline stats.
    • That number is backed by a new aggregate playtime API, making the platform's momentum easier to understand at a glance.
    • This gives both returning players and new visitors a more concrete feel for overall activity.

    Popular Discovery Tracks Real Engagement Better

    Browsing for active games should feel less biased toward recency and more grounded in actual play.

    • The two-week popular ranking now prioritizes recent play duration ahead of simple play counts.
    • A freshness-based tiebreaker was removed so newly uploaded games do not jump ahead just for being newer.
    • The result should be a more trustworthy popular feed that surfaces games earning real attention.

    Reviews And Reputation Got Fairer

    This week's most important trust update was making sure creators cannot influence their own public review standing.

    • Creators can no longer rate or review their own games from the game page.
    • Existing self-reviews are filtered out of public review lists, detail pages, and user review views.
    • Self-ratings also no longer feed into public game stats, search and favorites surfaces, profile review counts, section scores, or badge totals.

    Canvas Operations Became More Repeatable

    Behind the scenes, the collaborative canvas now has better support for shipping planned artwork at scale.

    • A new auto-painter workflow can translate PNG artwork into the closest live canvas palette colors.
    • It skips unchanged or transparent pixels and works through the normal authenticated placement flow instead of relying on a separate backdoor.
    • That should make larger community canvas moments easier to execute while still respecting the existing bucket and cooldown rules.
    Archive
    April 26, 2026 to May 3, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week focused on making The Grotto more expressive, easier to search, and steadier across social, Canvas, and game access flows.

    Published May 3, 2026

    21

    Merged pull requests

    2

    Core repos shipped

    5

    Priority areas

    Top Highlights

    Social posts now support a richer multi-image viewing experience, with stronger embed validation behind the scenes.
    User discovery got a meaningful upgrade through faster search, better direct-match ranking, and clearer suggested-creator prompts.
    Canvas became more rewarding and more stable with edition-holder bonuses, better boost guidance, smoother refills, and a more reliable bucket flow.
    Moderators can review draft gated games more easily, while private game session handling got more dependable for players.
    Wallet and trust flows were tightened up with safer HERESY max-bridge behavior and an updated 18+ Terms of Service requirement.

    Social Posting Feels Richer

    The social experience now does a better job showing context, media, and conversation detail.

    • Posts with multiple images now open in a dedicated viewer that makes browsing media feel much more natural.
    • Reply embeds and social previews carry more useful context, so conversations are easier to follow without losing your place.
    • Extra backend validation landed alongside these upgrades to make embedded social content more reliable.

    Search And Discovery Got Smarter

    Finding people and interesting activity should feel faster and less frustrating now.

    • Global user search was fixed so the right people show up more consistently.
    • Direct search matches now rank higher, making name-based lookup feel more precise.
    • Suggested creator messaging and follow prompts were cleaned up, and Analog Distortions gained a live explore feed for fresher discovery.

    Canvas Added Momentum

    This week combined progression improvements with quality-of-life polish for active painters.

    • Edition holders now receive paint bonuses, adding a stronger sense of progression and reward.
    • New boost prompts help surface those edition perks at the right moment instead of leaving them hidden.
    • Refill feedback was polished and bucket drain behavior was stabilized so the core loop feels less brittle.

    Game Access And Moderation Improved

    Teams reviewing games and players opening private experiences should both hit fewer rough edges.

    • Moderators can now preview draft gated games more directly, which should speed up reviews before launch.
    • Private game session cookies were refreshed more reliably to reduce access hiccups in protected game flows.
    • These changes support a smoother handoff between publishing, moderation, and actual play.

    Wallet And Trust Flows Tightened Up

    A few targeted fixes this week focused on preventing avoidable friction in sensitive flows.

    • Maxing out a HERESY bridge action now reserves gas instead of risking a stranded transaction.
    • Key wallet and sign-in calls to action were given better contrast so important actions are clearer on screen.
    • The Terms of Service now explicitly includes an 18+ age requirement to better reflect platform policy.
    Archive
    April 19, 2026 to April 26, 2026

    Weekly Product Update

    This week focused on making The Grotto feel more reliable, more social, and easier to navigate for players, creators, and collectors.

    Published April 26, 2026

    153

    Merged improvements

    2

    Core repos shipped

    6

    Priority areas

    Top Highlights

    Profiles, badges, and social replies now render more consistently and carry more useful identity context.
    Creator dashboards and leaderboards got accuracy fixes so revenue, reviews, and activity are easier to trust.
    Marketplace, library, and edition discovery were cleaned up across listings, offers, supply counts, thumbnails, and collection metadata.
    Embedded game sign-in, runtime session handling, and trusted game controls all moved forward.
    Canvas Season 2 and silent auctions both received meaningful progression and backend hardening.

    Profiles And Social Feel More Alive

    Identity across the platform is clearer, more expressive, and less brittle in edge cases.

    • Profile status and role badges now show up more reliably, including inside nested social replies.
    • Assigned badges can now be equipped more cleanly, and favorite game presentation got a quality-of-life refresh.
    • Profile avatar thumbnails, review counts, and public profile visibility rules were tightened up for better accuracy.

    Creator Dashboards And Leaderboards Are More Trustworthy

    Creators should see a more complete and believable view of performance now.

    • Creator activity now includes richer live detail, better scoped events, and game sales coverage.
    • Revenue and leaderboard totals were corrected to avoid stale summaries and double counting.
    • Pack activity and creator earnings are surfaced more clearly in high-visibility dashboard and leaderboard views.

    Marketplace And Library Browsing Got A Cleanup

    A large share of this week went into improving asset discovery and ownership clarity.

    • ERC1155 editions now show up more reliably across wallet, library, collection, and market flows.
    • Listing visibility, offer actions, minted supply counts, thumbnails, and collection metadata all received fixes.
    • Saved-item affordances, draft visibility, and asset detail browsing were polished to reduce confusion while exploring.

    Games And Runtime Flows Got Smoother

    The gameplay handoff between The Grotto and embedded experiences is heading in a stronger direction.

    • Embedded games can now receive Privy-based SSO messaging for a faster sign-in path.
    • Grotto game runtime sessions and internal commerce activity ingest improved continuity and activity reporting.
    • Trusted games gained moderator-controlled popup escape support, alongside fixes for loading and public runtime URL issues.

    Canvas Season 2 Took Shape

    Canvas work this week balanced fun progression with more consistent rules.

    • Season 2 canvas sizing and season identifiers were standardized across frontend and backend.
    • Paint bucket progression was added to make advancement feel more rewarding.
    • Cooldown bypass behavior was removed so the shared canvas stays fairer for everyone.

    Silent Auctions Moved Toward Safer Automation

    Auction settlement and handoff flows were hardened across both the app and backend.

    • Worker escrow handoff support landed for silent auctions.
    • Expired silent auctions can now be handed off more automatically.
    • Settlement filters and related auction UX were cleaned up to reduce operational friction.