This week, The Reality Escape Convention (RECON) announced Jason Richard, owner of Steal and Escape in San Diego, CA, as a speaker at this year’s digital global Reality Escape Convention.
Jason will be presenting tools, tips, and techniques for creating escape room tech that merges with gameplay.
Meeting Jason
I fondly remember first meeting Jason years ago. He was a new owner who was obsessed with creating the perfect hint system for his game. During a long conversation I learned that he hadn’t yet turned a profit. I remember telling him, “Just the fact that you care this much about the quality of your hint system tells me immediately that your game is probably pretty good. Stop worrying about perfecting hinting and figure out how to market and move tickets. Once you have cash flow, you can spend all the time that you’d like perfecting the nuances of your games. If you don’t, you won’t last long enough to make the games that you want to make.”
Well… he did it. And over the past few years, Jason has transformed himself into a remarkably knowledgeable and skilled game designer and technologist.
Tools Tips Techniques & Tech
We’re going to take a trip into Jason’s shop where he’s going to share a ton of hard-learned escape room tech lessons.
From soldering and low voltage DC power to Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and Node Red, Jason is going to provide a crash course on the basics of building escape room tech. His down-to-earth approaches and demeanor make this stuff feel accessible.
He won’t be able to turn you into an expert in an hour, but he can teach you the basics, help you outfit your toolkit, and set you on a solid, demystified path.
About Jason
Jason Richard and his wife opened Steal and Escape in 2015. Since opening, they have created five full-sized rooms and two mobile rooms, one of which debuted at Comic-Con promoting the TV series The Expanse.
With a lifelong passion for video games, board games, and technology, Jason has continued to affordably innovate with a heavy emphasis on DC power, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and Node-Red. His love of tech pushes him to strive for more, while his gaming experience keeps him firmly grounded in gameplay.
Join us at RECON
RECON ’20 is a free digital event with curated talks covering aspects of experience design in physical and digital media. The RECON team is excited to welcome Jason to the RECON stage.
RECON is about sharing knowledge and building community. You’re invited to join in strengthening a sustainable escape room industry that recognizes creators, players, and the challenges of 2020.
