Oh very good point about the review period. When I published my first game, it took a while (maybe a week?) before it even appeared on the games list. Although that could have been because it was really far down the bottom of the list.
Viewing post in When should I publish my Christmas game?
My new game right now is set to "Draft" on Itch.io because it's not quite ready yet. Do you think it's worth setting to "Published" even though it doesn't have a game file yet, or should I wait & publish it when the game is available to purchase? Is there any benefit in publishing a game that isn't ready to purchase yet, I wonder?
Or is that missing an opportunity to get traffic only when the game is available to purchase?
Your game is only indexed on itch.io when there is a file to download. If you publish it now, it will show as free (because you can't charge for a non-existent file) and there will be nothing to download - people will possibly look at the page but then move on and forget about it. If they search for a Christmas themed game, yours will not appear because it won't be indexed.
When you add a file in it, it probably won't appear under new releases any more and you will have missed that window of opportunity.
You should publish it as soon as possible, because people are starting to play Christmas games - but don't publish it until it is ready.