How do you share work in progress honestly before a launch?

I’m a solo developer at Mobi Studio, finishing a small Windows desktop pet game called Gulugulu.

It is scheduled to launch on Steam on August 18, 2026 at 00:00 GMT+8, with a launch price of $1.99 USD.

I’m at the awkward stage where the store page is live, but the current build still needs another round of release testing. I don’t want to disappear until everything is perfect, but I also don’t want to market unfinished work as if it were done.

For people who have launched a small product on their own: what kind of pre-launch updates were actually useful to your audience? Short build notes, brief demos, behind-the-scenes posts, or something else?

For context, this is the Steam page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4956830

I’m doing this without an advertising budget, so I’d especially appreciate hearing what worked when you couldn’t rely on paid reach.