Reviving & Expanding JME’s Social Media Presence

I’ve recently been discussing some plans with @RiccardoBlb in regard to posting more actively on jme’s official social media pages. And (unless anyone contests) I will be taking on the role as marketing manager for jme in an attempt to carry out these plans.

The goal is to grow our social media presence in order to promote both JmonkeyEngine as well as all of your games and projects built with it.

The effects will likely be minimal at first, but building an organic social media presence requires persistent posting over time, and (as long as a routine posting schedule is maintained) I expect this to be beneficial in the long run.

Right now, we currently only post publicly to twitter when there’s a new release, which leaves big gaps between posts (which is typically not received well by the algorithm on most platforms)

So I plan to create a manageable routine to post some of the following things every few days:

  • Announcements relating to engine development

  • Posts that showcase finished (and in-progress, albeit less frequently) games/projects made with jme, with a link to a store page or the project’s socials

  • Posts showcasing tools and libraries made with jme

  • A pinned post linking to the completed monthly WIP thread at the end of each month

  • Occasional posts pointing to an engine tutorial or mentioning a notable feature of the engine

  • Occasional off topic posts (with some relation to gaming or programming), this is useful only for increasing engagement and will help increase reach especially on more casual platforms

  • (And any more ideas welcome)

I will be posting this all to a wide variety of places to maximize our reach, including the following so far:

  • Twitter/X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram/Threads
  • LinkedIn
  • Bluesky
  • Nostr
  • Discord
  • Reddit

(Some effort may be required to retrieve access to some of these accounts that are not tied to our official project email, but I’m working with Riccardo on this currently, and I will be making another thread to request help on this issue later tonight)

I also don’t want to post about projects without first having permission, so I will create a monthly thread where jme users can opt into having some of your projects posted about for that month. I can come up with a generic post if requested, or you could also submit a write-up, screenshots, videos, etc and I can post that everywhere and rotate between posting a different project every few days, or possibly more frequently depending on the platform. I’ll have more information about this when I create the first thread that will be for next month, and I’ll likely adapt my tactics as I work more with each platform.

And as always, any feedback or additional ideas are welcome!

22 Likes

I think this is a fantastic initiative and a great step forward for the community. It will definitely help raise awareness of jMonkeyEngine and expand our reach.

From my experience on various Discord servers, I’ve noticed that many developers aren’t even aware that jMonkeyEngine exists. When they do discover it, they’re often surprised—and genuinely impressed—that modern games can still be made in Java. There’s a lot of untapped interest out there, and having someone actively promoting the engine could make a real difference.

Kudos to you for stepping up and taking on this role!

7 Likes

I’ve tried to reach out to the creator of r/jmonkeyengine in the past to ask for mod status, but didn’t get a reply. Hopefully you have better luck.
Edit: And I meant to say: “great initiative” :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Great initiative. We will do our best to make it a success

2 Likes

I’ll message them and see if they can hand over moderator privileges, and I’ll link back to this thread so they know its an official request. And thanks for being active and posting release announcements on the jme subreddit!

I’m hoping to get our subreddit more active soon, since reddit is a good place to reach other devs and even potential customers for jme games. So it would be beneficial if more jme users start posting about our projects and upvoting each other on our subreddit, and then we can cross post to other subs to bring more attention.

4 Likes

I applaud the effort! If done right, this could be a great boon to jME.

From a more realistic perspective however, a lot of your content plans revolve around user made projects and tutorials, which if monthly WIPs are to go by, aren’t exactly plentiful these days. Back in the more active days we regularly hit >100 posts of people posting their projects in a monthly WIP thread, but nowadays we can be lucky if we hit 30. As such, it might be worth thinking of some more post types that aren’t dependent on user generated content.

As an example, a while ago I was toying with the idea of making monthly “this month on jME github” type recap videos for some of the more important decisions that were made in github issue discussions, but then activity in various jME channels started dropping, life happened and I mostly stopped using jME, so the idea never got anywhere. But maybe recaps like that could be used as another type of post if you’re looking for more types of posts?

3 Likes

Also I checked and apparently if they don’t reply, reddit also has a way to reclaim a subreddit in the case all moderators are inactive. Check the sidebar here.

1 Like

That is a good idea, I will add that to a list I’m keeping of additional post ideas to shuffle between to maintain activity. Many of my posts will inevitably be lower impact posts that I will likely come up with on the fly, just to appease the algorithm and drive engagement (depending on the platform)

But posting jme games and projects is still going to be my main priority and I will do this as much as possible, since this will get the most attention and will be most beneficial.

If there’s less projects to post, then the few projects that are being posted will just get posted about more, and hopefully that will inspire other jme devs to opt in to get their project in the marketing rotation as well.

I also don’t think there’s any shortage of cool videos and screenshots of jme games and projects out there, and I could easily find at least 1 cool image or video to share per day (or every few days) for the next 100 days at least. And if I have to start reposting things, then that should be okay too, as long as I wait long enough.

I also expect that there are many jme games available for sale right now that would likely have no issue being posted to jme’s socials on a monthly basis, and I hope that increasing our reach (especially on places like twitter, bluesky, and youtube) will serve as extra motivation and support for jme devs that want to get eyes (and even sales) on their games.

The main thing will be setting up a good system to let jme devs easily opt in. If someone wants to submit a high effort write up for me to post verbatim (such as when an app is freshly released), then they can do that

But I’ll also allow anyone to just say “I want this project showcased as much as possible for this month/year/forever” and then I’ll just add it to a rotation of games that I post about.

I will have a lot more information about this system and the various ways to opt in soon, and I will be publishing some documentation to explain everything and to hopefully encourage as many jme devs as possible to opt in.

6 Likes

I think that hosting a JME3 specific game jam on a platform such as ITCH can also be great for both JME PR and new content generation for the other social networks websites.

4 Likes

Great initiative!
I also think jME could have a stronger presence on social media.

2 Likes

Thanks for the initiative! Following that, I modified some of my posts on LinkedIn and mentioned the Engine page.

2 Likes

That would be nice if we can gather enough people to participate.

Btw, about itch.io, some years ago when I uploaded a game I noticed that jME is not available as an engine option for the metadata.
There is a form to add tools and I submitted it with all the details but I never got an answer, perhaps an engine leader can have better luck. Not sure if that’d be good for anything other than games being indexed by jme (e.g. unity) and getting more visibility.

5 Likes

We may have better luck with a community-made game in that respect.

3 Likes

We won’t find out if we don’t give it a shot.. :wink:

1 Like

I tried registering my game engine / IDE using that form now. If it works I’ll update and ask if any of the game leaders may want to fill that form.

4 Likes

I’ve also submitted that form in the past. However, just like what happened to you, I also did not receive a response from them, and the engine was never added as an option on the site. Regardless, I always add the jMonkeyEngine tag to my games.

2 Likes
  • UPDATE #1
    Changed Projects that use this tool in the table below so it only contains itch.io links as the submission form requires. Also added additional game commenters posted.
  • UPDATE 2
    Added https://jmonkeyengine.itch.io/ link, needs confirmation if it’s owned by JME team.
  • UPDATE 3
    Added games of @grizeldi and @bloodwalker.
  • UPDATE 4
    https://jmonkeyengine.itch.io/ is the official page and there is access.
  • UPDATE 5
    Added more games by digging through the forum.
  • UPDATE 6
    Removed sgold as per his request.
  • UPDATE 7
    Added @adi.barda 's game
  • UPDATE 8
    Added @fba 's games.

@adi.barda @codex @xuan @Pavl_G @yaRnMcDonuts

I’ve collected the itch.io game engine database form submission details. If everyone agrees these are correct then let’s collectively submit all of us so they notice JME. Please double check the creator part, I’ve copied the Team members there from the contribution page. Other details are from GitHub and the official website.

Form Data Value
Title jMonkeyEngine
Type Game Engine
Creator Ryan McDonough, Riccardo Balbo, MeFisto94
Website https://jmonkeyengine.org/
One sentence description jMonkeyEngine is a modern developer friendly game engine written primarily in Java.
Full description jMonkeyEngine is a powerful, open-source 3D game engine for Java developers. Designed for modern 3D game development, it offers a scene graph-based architecture, built-in physics via Bullet, support for terrain, lighting, shadows, animation, and post-processing effects. jMonkeyEngine is cross-platform, with deployment support for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android. It also includes a custom SDK with visual tools for asset management, scene editing, and debugging. Whether you’re building a first-person shooter, strategy game, or VR experience, jMonkeyEngine provides the tools and flexibility to bring your vision to life — all while leveraging the Java ecosystem.
Screenshot Image collage from the GitHub page
Icon Icon from GitHub Profile Pic
Are you the creator/manager of this tool? If you are then tick yes
itch.io page URL https://jmonkeyengine.itch.io/
Projects that use this tool - Last Tavern by The Giant
- Exotic Matter by MobiusCode
- Stranded by The Giant
- Survival City by The Giant
- Loop Racer by The Giant
- Lightspeed Frontier Demo by RivetedGames
- Dark Escape by The Giant
- Tiny Tellus by The Giant
- Omega Syndicate by jcfandino
- Carnival of Fate by The Giant
- Abyss Of The Void by jcfandino
- Depthdrops by codewalker
- Super Sonic Boom by The Giant
- Cubic Nightmare by JaredBGreat
- AEKI Wares by grizeldi
- Storming Sands by grizeldi, PickyDogFish
- Pure Domino by codewalker
- Everybody Loves Bricks by benckx
- Situation Normal by Artificials
- Flying Gangsters - Mini Jam 60: Crime by Adi Barda
- Arka·Breakout by fba
- Slugs:Ascendance by stanislavAvd
- Rally Desert Cheese by Adi Barda
- Catch The Spheres [UPG] by Adi Barda
- Warrior - Open Source Fighting Game by Adi Barda
- Bomber Airships (PC Edition) by fba
- Galáxia 3074 AD by fba
7 Likes

Thank you! I will do that. I also sent to their support (support@itch.io) an email regarding that matter

1 Like

You can also add my games to the list, these are all my games made with jME:
Loop Racer
Survival City
Tiny Tellus
Carnival of Fate
Last Tavern
Stranded
Dark Escape
Super Sonic Boom

And my mobile games:
Musical Tiles
Sudoku
Color Cube
Memory Heroes

7 Likes

Great idea, I will submit it. But first please notice the form says:

Projects that use this tool — Please provide a list of links to projects on itch.io that already use this tool. Separate by new lines, please include at least 3

So I think we should only include those already on itch.
Here are other two you can add to your list.

Abyss Of The Void
Omega Syndicate

4 Likes