Our creative contest is back! It’s time to get your creative caps on to get another chance to win a unique prize crown. Let’s dive in and learn more about the LBP Reconnected 2024 contest!
Fast Facts!
- LBP Reconnected 2024 is a creative contest to celebrate community custom servers.
- For PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and RPCS3.
- There will be up to four winners, one for each game (LBP1-3 and Vita), and then a runner-up for each game.
- 1st place prize will receive:
- The Reconnected Crown: a unique custom prize crown.
- The ‘Reconnected’ role on our Discord server.
- Reconnected Crown sticker in-game
- Custom user tag on Beacon’s website.
- Team pick
- Runner up prizes
- Reconnected Crown sticker in-game.
- Custom user tag on Beacon’s website.
- Team pick.
- Deadline: July 31st, 2024.
- Theme: You fall asleep on the beach. What do you dream about?
- You must sign up before submitting. Click below to learn more details.
What is LBP Reconnected?
LBP Reconnected is a series of contests hosted by LBP Union, a community of LittleBigPlanet fans just like you! Reconnected was first held in 2021 to celebrate the return of the LittleBigPlanet servers on PlayStation 4. The contest was run again last summer to celebrate the launch of Project Lighthouse’s public beta.
Now, we want LBP Reconnected to be a yearly event that celebrates the legacy of the LittleBigPlanet servers and community. Although the official servers were discontinued earlier this year, the community continues the legacy of the LBP community through custom servers like Beacon. The contest is a reminder that the community isn’t defined by any one server, but rather by people like you who love LBP and want to share that love and imagination with the world. Although events might ‘disconnect’ us, we will always be ‘reconnected’ by the ingenuity of the community.
About Reconnected 2024
Timeline
LBP Reconnected 2024 celebrates the continuation of the legacy of the LittleBigPlanet community with custom servers. Submissions will be accepted until the end of the day July 31st, 2024. Our goal is to wrap up judging by the end of August. Keep an eye out on this post, our social media, and our Discord server to learn about any delays or changes to the timeline.
Criteria: Rules & How to Participate
Here are important rules you must follow in order to participate in Reconnected 2024.
- Submissions will be judged based on a number of factors, including alignment with the contest theme (see next section), visual quality, gameplay, and originality.
- Level title should contain the hashtag “#Reconnected2024” and be submitted on our custom server, Beacon. You may upload the level to other servers if you wish, but we can only judge levels uploaded to Beacon.
- You must sign up prior to submitting.
- Your level should have gameplay. It should not be a video or a gallery.
- Please follow Beacon’s Terms of Service.
- Plagiarism will not be tolerated.
- You must submit your level before the deadline listed in the timeline section. If you edit your level after the deadline, you will be disqualified. Feel free to edit your level again after the winners have been selected.
- You may work as a team if you wish, but only the person uploading the level is elligible to win prizes.
- Please do not feature any real individuals or personas in your level. All characters should be fictional.
- You may only make one submission.
Please note: we reserve the right to withhold winnings from levels that don’t meet a minimum standard of quality or alignment with the contest theme.
Prizes
There will be up to four winners this year, one for each game: LittleBigPlanet 1, 2, 3, and Vita. The first place prize winner will receive the Reconnected Crown, a unique crown you can only win in this contest each year! First place will also receive the Reconnected role on our Discord server and a badge on the Beacon website. They’ll also get a concept art sticker of the crown in-game and a team pick.
Please note: the Reconnected Crown cannot be used in LBP Vita but one will be awarded to the Vita creator winner on PS3/RPCS3 titles.
Runner ups will get everything listed above except for the Discord role and the crown costume piece.
Some notes about the Reconnected Crown:
- It is a ‘modded’ item that does not ship with the game and it does not require any DLC.
- The color of the crown is dependent on your popit color. This changes the color of the wires, lights, and the move controller on the top!
- It can be combined with some hair pieces.
Learn more about the creators of the crown and how it was made in our behind the scenes post.
Theme
LittleBigPlanet is all about transforming our dreams into reality. You fall asleep on the beach. What do you dream about? Make a level that’s a dream you would have on the beach. Your level might take place on the beach, or maybe somewhere else, but make sure it conveys the idea that it’s a dream somehow.
Tips
Seem a little challenging? Here are some tips we have for following the theme:
- Show — don’t tell. We like levels that focus more on portraying a story, experience, or feeling through gameplay instead of using lots of text.
- Take a look at our prompt ideas later in this article to get a better place to start.
- It’s okay to include LBP Union in your level, but it won’t get you any extra brownie points. LBP Union is just one part of the LBP community, Reconnected is about all of us, not just the Union! We will not give any extra consideration to levels that feature LBP Union.
- Please do not include any real people or aliases or personas in your levels except for yourself if you must. Please use original characters.
Prompt Ideas & Tips
Here are some of ideas that can give you a starting point to work from when thinking of how to make your Reconnected 2024 contest submission. You don’t have to use any of these ideas for your levels, you could create something entirely new or a combination of different ideas! As long as you follow the theme and meet the criteria listed above, you’ll be golden!
Beach!
If you’re dreaming on the beach, why not make a beach-themed level? You could make a Seaside theme level like the theme that was originally going to be in the first LittleBigPlanet. A runner up for the first Reconnected used this theme!
Not Beach!
Well, you don’t necessarily have to be dreaming about the beach…you could be dreaming about anything! LittleBigPlanet is all about making our dreams into reality, so let your imagination run wild! Maybe try having the player character fall asleep on the beach in a cutscene before you transition to your new idea?
Get Original!
Don’t be afraid to branch out away from the ‘traditional’ style of LittleBigPlanet story levels. Reconnected 2024 is a celebration of the community and the whole scope of its imagination. Some of the best community levels don’t look anything like the official story mode of the games. Being more original can help you score extra points!
Sign Up and Submit Your Level
Ready to get started? Don’t worry if you’re a little intimidated, we’re here to help you through it! There are two ways to sign up. Please only use one method to sign up.
Sign Up for Reconnected 2024 on Discord (Recommended)
The best way to sign up for Reconnected 2024 is through our Discord server. By getting the Reconnected 2024 Participant role, you can get push notifications to your devices about contest updates and events. We’d like to do events like Q&As, creators’ workshops, contestant interviews, and other stuff over the next few months up until submissions closed. You can also quickly ask questions and get answers in our Reconnected 2024 channel and share your progress with other sackfolk.
To sign up for Reconnected 2024 on Discord, follow these steps:
- Join our Discord server.
- Under the Channels & Roles section when you join (or at the top of the channel list if you’re already a member), find the Reconnected 2024 Participant role and add it to your account. You should now see the Reconnected 2024 channels in your list and have the ability to send messages and speak in event exclusive voice channels.
- The final step is to introduce yourself with a post in the #rcparticipants forum channel. Use the provided template to include your PSN/RPCN name and mention some of the ideas you currently have for your level. This doesn’t have to be your final idea! Just let us know what you’re thinking about, even if the response is ‘I don’t know yet!’
Sign Up for LBP Reconnected 2024 via Email
If you prefer not to use Discord, you may instead sign up for LBP Reconnected 2024 via email. This may be more privacy friendly for you. However, this method will void your opportunity to receive an exclusive Reconnected winner role on Discord if your submission wins. To sign up via email, you’ll need to use our Google Form. The Google Form will ask you to provide an email address. Please use the email address associated with your Beacon account. If you prefer to use a different email address, please change the email associated with your Beacon account by logging in on the website and changing it in your profile settings. If you need help changing it, please contact us. To maximize your privacy, create a new email address that you only use with Beacon.
Signing up via email will let us reach out just in case there has been a change to the contest rules, deadline, or some other important update about the contest. You may unsubscribe by simply replying ‘STOP’ or asking to be unsubscribed. This process is handled manually, so you won’t be dealing with robots.
Submit Your Level
Remember, before you get to this step, you must sign up either on Discord or via email as explained above! Skipping that step will disqualify your submission. The purpose of the submission form is for us to keep better track of who is who and to provide us the best way to contact you about results. That way we can quickly and accurately provide results and prizes! To submit your level, use the form below:
Good Luck, Sackfolk!
We’re looking forward to seeing what this amazing community has in store for Reconnected this year! Thank you for reading, and we hope you have a ton of fun this summer working on your projects!
