What I personally do is play what I can on Itch, then comment there, rate it 5 stars if I liked it, comment the same thing here on Ludum Dare (maybe adding a little more critical feedback), and then give it my honest ratings here on Ludum Dare.

Oh, and if I really like it, I absolutely follow them on Itch 🧡

I'd always heard that giving anything other than 5 stars on Itch actually hurts a game (as in, it's worse to give a game 4 stars than to not rate it at all), so what I do is: if I like a game, I rate it 5 stars. If I don't, I just don't rate it.

Obviously this isn't a requirement, and I'm NOT saying to lie about a game (or to do this for my game!). But ratings help on Itch :D And it feels nice to get notifications on there of people enjoying the game, so I'm assuming others feel the same.

With that said, I'm seeing lots of comments on a lot of the Itch pages, and that makes me so freaking happy! 🧡