Dev Log 12: Growing Luminids From Zero to 19,000 Followers

Four Luminids on a meadow path.

Luminids around the web

Game Website Steam Instagram TikTok Itch.io YouTube

In January 2026, Luminids had no followers anywhere. By April it had 19,000 across all its channels, and more than 15 million interactions.

I do use the standard advice about hooks, algorithms and posting frequency, and it matters. But it isn’t where most of the growth came from, and it took me a while to see what was.

A Luminid plush on a bridge in Cambridge, with punts going past underneath.

What people actually responded to

When I started, I posted like a developer showing progress: here’s a feature, here’s a system, here’s a clip, here’s what changed. I still do, because people want to see the game taking shape.

But the posts people reacted to most strongly were often much simpler:

a small Luminid moment
a soft lighting pass
a world shot with the right music
a post where the reason I’m making the game came through clearly

Often the mechanic in them was nothing special. Nobody follows a colony sim for its job queue. They follow because a post gave them a feeling they wanted more of.

That changed how I talk about Luminids. On paper it’s a cozy world-building game. What I’m actually trying to make is a game that helps people feel still again in a busy world, and a post that only explains mechanics can’t get that across.

Where people find it

Short-form video gives you a few seconds to show what the game is like.

Most people get their first look at Luminids on TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. Quick visual moments work best there: creature clips, scale shots, seasonal beats, calm shots of the world and short progress reveals.

The other channels do different jobs. LinkedIn has been useful for the founder side of the story: why I’m building Luminids, what I’m learning and where it’s heading. Discord is home base, because followers aren’t a community until they have somewhere to gather. Steam is where all of it has to turn into wishlists and follows. And the site and blog give people somewhere more solid to land once a short clip has caught their attention.

The posts I keep coming back to

Over time I’ve settled into the same five kinds of post:

The world. Biome shots, lighting passes, weather and scale. These show the tone without much explanation, and give people a reason to picture themselves in there.
The Luminids themselves. They make the world look lived-in and give the project a personality fast.
Progress. Builds, systems, milestones, UI passes and dev logs, as proof the game is becoming real.
Why I’m making it. When I talk honestly about that, people understand the project better.
Community moments. Giveaways, seasonal posts, plushie posts, small celebrations and posts built around the comments. They give people an easy way to join in.

The creatures do a lot of the work.

Around camp: the look of the world and the actual game in one shot.

One clip, many posts

As an indie founder I can’t afford to waste effort, so I stretch each piece of work as far as it will go. A single clip can become a vertical short, a shorter cut with a different hook, a still image, a founder post, a dev log reference, a Discord post, a Steam call to action and a giveaway tie-in. That’s a big part of how I keep things moving without starting every post from scratch.

Posting often matters, but being recognisable matters more. Wherever someone runs into Luminids, it should obviously be the same game, with the same creatures and the same tone. When that holds, each post builds on the ones before it.

Views aren't wishlists

A post can rack up views, travel a long way, and still do almost nothing for the game long-term.

The posts that actually help do three things at once: they get a reaction, they’re recognisably Luminids, and they give people an obvious next step. That step doesn’t need to be pushy. A hard sell would feel wrong for this game, so I keep the asks simple: wishlist it, join the Discord, or follow along.