On tags, you may be right there. I will look into it more seriously.
Your approach sounds interesting, and i appreciate the constructive criticism.
On marketing strategy (sharing everywhere, optimizing off-platform, etc.) i understand the advice, but I still find it a bit utopian in this situation.
Visibility on platforms like itchio or steam is not something you can sculpt the same way you sculpt a game or art.
In practice, you release something, and then the platform decides whether to push it or not.
That is the core issue for me.
I have seen many developers say that most of their traffic still comes from itch.io itself, so even with external sharing,the bottleneck often remains the same. Maybe there are tricks I never found. But after years on this project, i honestly do not see a realistic path where i alone could replace that kind of placement. (even if i have posted the game in other platform and also social media like twitter/X )
On updates,i understand it may look unclear from a player perspective.
From a developer side, when I upload a new build with real content (new scenes, systems, polish, optimization), itch.io itself offers a major update devlog option. That is how I have been treating monthly releases.
I am a solo dev, so the scale is small, but each update still adds meaningful content. I was not posting empty devlogs just for visibility.
And on impact, I hope your suggestions help someone reading this thread. I genuinely mean that.
But I do not think better tags or page tweaks would erase the bigger problem i described earlier ,
unpredictable promotion after months of work, even if i do not refuse your feedback.