Weekly Product Update

Key details

• Merged changes reviewed: 127
• Core repos shipped: 2
• Major product themes: 5

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.

Studio now supports durable games with multiple threads, reconnectable long-running work, exact source recovery, tested publishing, and a unified editable game library.

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.

Creators can test the exact artifact they publish, set a hard Studio spend cap, and rely on more verifiable wallet, City, Analog, and marketplace actions.

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.

Studio Became A Workspace You Can Trust Over Time

Game creation can now survive long sessions, multiple directions, reconnects, and publishing without losing the exact project you were building.

• One game can have multiple durable threads, exact project URLs, account-scoped history, and reconnectable runs that survive refreshes, sleep, navigation, and dropped streams.
• Interrupted or budget-limited work keeps its exact editable source and can recover from the right checkpoint instead of silently starting over or masking a failed run.
• Studio now requires the exact browser artifact to load cleanly before publishing unlocks and checkpoints browser edits so stale or conflicted files cannot silently go live.
• A unified game library can reopen published games for secure editing, preserve their runtime and identity, show captured previews or artwork, and accept security-checked project materials.
• Creators can set an exact maximum run spend up to their available balance, keep the recommended amount as a calm default, and get every unused reserved dollar released.

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.

• Studio publishing is tied to the exact tested file tree, invalidates stale checks after edits, and routes broken artifacts back into B.O.B. repair instead of letting them go live.
• 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.

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Source record

The Grotto’s official update was published July 18, 2026.