James Cobalt, avid enthusiast, keeps track of all the news that happen on the escape room enthusiast slack.
Newsletter #2 – September 2, 2019
This is the second bulletin of what’s going on in and around our community for September, 2019. Contact James Cobalt if you want to contribute!
2019 Escape Room Enthusiast Survey
Thanks to community members, the world’s largest survey of player preferences and habits is now available in 13 languages. If you haven’t gotten around to the 2019 survey yet, know your window of opportunity closes soon! https://thecodex.ca/take-the-2019-er-enthusiast-survey/
Events
#nyc popup sensation, The Privilege of Escape (developed by @Risa w/ collaboration from @Brett et al.), has been extended from Sept 12th to the 29th. Details here: http://creativetime.org/the-privilege-of-escape/
The 3rd annual Escape Room Industry Conference (“ERIC”) takes place October the 14th and 15th in London. Speakers include @ken, @bob.melkus, @nick, @Stairs, and many more. Tickets are available at http://ericuk.org.
Room Escape Artist has announced their 2020 “Escape, Immerse, Explore” tour. Next May will see 10 fantastic games over 3 days in 1 beautiful city – Montreal, Canada. Organizers @REA David and @REA Lisa offer tickets and an overview of the tour here: https://roomescapeartist.com/montreal-2020/
Tech
@Stairs hosts a fantastic YouTube channel with many videos for people in the industry. Some recent uploads cover how to build various radio transmission puzzles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FqYEGL8yxM) and clever uses for infrared light (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKKhNqUKbnA&).
Hey! Listen!
So.many.new.podcasts.
The first season of Every Game In This City follows 10 game designers, researchers, and curators (including @Laura E. Hall) as they attempt to play every escape room in Kuala Lumpur: https://www.idlethumbs.net/everygame
Florida-based Escape Expeditions is a podcast that opines on various aspects of escape rooms and offers audio reviews: http://escapeexpeditions.buzzsprout.com/
In GM The GM, host Gemma Marsh talks escape rooms from the perspective of a Game Master. Find it on Spotify, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/gm-the-gm
The “Escape This” podcast (http://www.escapethispodcast.com/) is now on Season 5! Play along to the show and consider hosting an #escapelive event (essentially D&D with Escape This as the Dungeon Master guide book)!
Speaking of No Proscenium, Room Escape Divas recently interviewed founder Noah Nelson (and on their recent PNW trip, a number of Slackers): http://www.inversegenius.com/roomescapedivas
Community Recognition
Our Slack group has well surpassed 1,000 members! Most of which are probably human!
@LoganG and @Khiara have met their Kickstarter goal for a narrative puzzle game hidden in a deck of cards. There’s just about a week left to back: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enigmaemporium/carterouge
Miskatonic University, the first van-based puzzle hunt to grace the USA in five years just concluded and was participated in by many Slack members. @keygirl has a detailed writeup on the experience: https://www.facebook.com/notes/tammy-mcleod-puzzler/miskatonic-university-game-in-boston/2357434120970505/. @dankatz has one here: https://puzzlvaria.wordpress.com/2019/09/02/recap-miskatonic-university-game-part-3/
Speaking of driving, @Jeff Carter has made us envious with this custom license plate https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T0FE3BV3J-FKNHBTECE/image_from_ios.jpg
@Robs has returned from a Denver trip where he hit his 100th game!
@lucasjohnson is about to do his 400th game (Hex Room!). Congrats!
EscapeTalk.nl turned 3 years old at 15,400 reviews! Congrats to @pimarts!
The new award site for TERPECA (or as I affectionately call it, The Braggs) will be up soon with nominations beginning in a few weeks. #top_rooms_project
@Juliana Ariel, creators of the Escape Room In A Box games (amongst other projects) are interviewed in SyFy Wire: https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/nerdy-jobs-meet-the-designers-who-create-at-home-escape-rooms-and-other-puzzle-experiences
David & Lisa of Room Escape Artist were recently interviewed on No Proscenium’s Youtube channel – a show covering all kinds of #immersive entertainment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyBXHZeZqCo
Channel Spotlights
#gamedesigntheory is the new heady space for esoteric papers and soapbox rants around all elements of game design, from flow to environmental storytelling.
#tabletoprpg is the channel that asks “How has a community like this gone this long without this channel?”
#immersive is for all kinds of immersive entertainment, but reminds you that haunt season is nearly upon us.
International Channels:
– #australia
– #canada
– #germany
– #netherlands
– #new-zealand
– #russia
– #spain
– #uk
USA Specific:
– #boston
– #buffalo-niagara
– #connecticut
– #midwest-us
– #norcal
– #nyc
– #portland
– #seattle
– #socal
– #southern-us
Newsletter #1 – August, 2019
This is your first monthly-ish update and reminder of what’s going on in our Slack community. Got something for the next update? Shoot James Cobalt me a DM.
Events
“Up The Game” in Amsterdam, a popular international escape-room & real-life-gaming conference, is in 5 days. There are “lazy bird” tickets still available at https://upthegame.nl/tickets/. Attending? Connect with us in #up-the-game. Not attending but looking for escape teammates in the Netherlands during this period? Also join.
Another great conference this month, “The Esacpe Summit”, is taking place May 27-28 in Peterborough, Ontario (between Toronto and Ottawa). Registration is still open at https://www.theescapesummit.com/register
The 4th annual “Room Escape Conference & Tour” by Transworld is August 6-8 in San Antonio, Texas. If you are attending, or live in the area and want to meetup/game with visiting Slackers, join the #tw-conference channel. Register for the conference at https://www.roomescapeshow.com
NYC’s “Everything Immersive Meetup”, hosted by Room Escape Artist and No Proscenium, is Monday, May 20 at 6pm. Details at the REA blog here: https://roomescapeartist.com/2019/04/29/nyc-everything-immersive-meetup-may/
Next month’s “Escape, Immerse, Explore” tour of New Orleans, hosted by @REA David and @REA Lisa, has a few tickets left. Details here: https://roomescapeartist.com/new-orleans-tour/
Next month’s “The Palace” tour of San Francisco’s famous Palace Games is sold out – EXCEPT 6 tickets for the talk and puzzle hunt on Sunday, June 2: https://roomescapeartist.com/palace-tour/
Community Recognition
Congrats to the many Slackers who competed in the Red Bull Escape Room World Championship (#rbmg_season2). The finals concluded in London, with Slovakia taking home the winning title: https://mindgamers.redbull.com/escape/en
@scottnicholson, @shannonm, and Konstantin Mitgusch have provided us with an engaging behind the scenes look of their fantastic work on the Red Bull Mind Games challenges. Spoilers abound, so don’t watch if you want to play these games yourself someday (yes, that’s a real thing that is being worked on): https://youtu.be/c1WSY66XD-Q
The aforementioned Shannon McDowell is also a Research Associate at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is presently doing work on cultural bias in escape rooms! If you’ve played in multiple countries/cultures/languages and can donate 30 minutes of your time, send a DM @shannonm or an email to smcdowell@wlu.ca.
@Adriano recently played his 150th game. Enjoy that escake! https://escaperooms.slack.com/archives/C9B1YR59B/p1555241106182200
@amanda (งツ)ว
@Anthony has successfully defended his dissertation and will receive his PhD this month! Even though his dissertation was not escape room related, we’re still proud.
Skilled Job Opportunities
Speaking of PhDs, @scottnicholson is looking to hire one for a tenure-tracked assistant professor position in digital game creation. Details of the Brantford, Ontario based opportunity here: https://tinyurl.com/y3lhqjxr
SCRAP-partner and Toronto-based “Secret City Adventures” is hiring for a Marketing Manager, Game Designer, and Props/Puzzle Designer: https://www.secretcityadventures.com/jobs
The New York Times is hiring a Product Director for the Crossword and Puzzles team: https://tinyurl.com/y46mo28f
Let’s Play
For people like @manpans who are jonesing for an escape, consider listening to the “Escape This” podcast (http://www.escapethispodcast.com/) or organizing an #escapeliveevent (essentially D&D with Escape This as the Dungeon Master guide book)!
Also check out a new escape room #podcast concept – “3D Escape Room”: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/3d-escape-room-frequency/id1456106697
@Nick offers Escapes-As-A-Service called “You Escape”. The pricing is very reasonable and you can play anywhere you have a half-decent internet connection. Highly recommended by many Slackers here. https://www.patreon.com/youescape
Listen to an interview with Nick in the latest episode (no.89) of the Room Escape Divas. https://tinyurl.com/yyuussvt
The #puzzles channel offers daily headscratchers, both in the form of puzzles and @dkmiller71‘s terrible/wonderful puns!
If you have access to VR equipment, join our occasional multiplayer escapes in the #vr channel. Lots of discussion lately from all the new VR equipment and games being released this spring.
Still not satisfied? Ask for good escape game recommendations in the #videogames channel. (all game genres welcome! 
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