Not an arcade. Thirty life-size games.
If you are looking for an arcade in Mississauga, here is the honest version of what Cube Challenges is. There are no cabinets, no tokens and no ticket counter.
Instead there are thirty rooms on Unity Drive, and each room is one game played at full scale: basketball hoops you shoot at, targets you throw at, a tilting maze you steer by hand, a jump pad in front of a screen.
You play as a team of two to six. Every player wears an RFID wristband, the team shares one score, and that score sits on a live leaderboard for the whole session. Scan into a room, choose one of three difficulty levels, and the room unlocks. Clear it and the points go on the board. Miss it, and you can scan back in and go again.
Think of it as the room-sized version of an arcade hour: the same reflexes, aim and competitiveness, with your whole body doing the playing.
The rooms that feel most like an arcade
Thirteen of the thirty rooms are Skills rooms, and they are the closest thing here to a row of arcade machines.
Throwing and aiming
Buzzer Beater is two basketball hoops and a clock: score as many baskets as you can before the buzzer. Target 8 has you landing balls in rotating targets, Hitball is rolling balls into scoring holes, and in Shooting Farm the team cranks a well to power the guns before shooting the targets in the farm. Slingshot Madness gives every player a slingshot and a wall of archery targets hidden among Cubio's belongings.
Reaction and timing
Lights On is pure perception and reaction: hit the lights as they come on. Hangry Monkey is played on a jump pad in front of a screen, filling a basket with the fruit the monkey asks for while dodging the barrels she throws. In 7 Blocks the team builds the block shown on the screen out of real cubes before the one on the screen falls, and Bubble Trouble is a race to complete the words on the screen.
Steady hands
Crystal Maze is a tilting playfield you steer a ball through by hand, and there is more than one hole to find. Crazy Circuit is the classic steady-hand wire game at room scale: carry the ring from start to finish without touching the route and losing your lives. Subbuteo puts you up against a goalkeeper.
The other seventeen rooms
An arcade has one kind of game. The floor here has three. Ten Physical rooms ask you to move: Cardio is a crossing on climbing handles without touching the red floor, Laser Maze is a web of beams to get through without tripping the alarm, Speed Barrels is a flat-out run, and Road to Olympus is a climb to the top against the clock.
Seven Brain rooms are memory, maths and pattern under time pressure: Bomb Squad punishes a wrong calculation, Genius is arithmetic at speed, Rainbow Mind is colour-coded button combinations, and Worlderland matches photos to countries on a world map.
Most teams mix all three categories in a session, which is the real difference from an arcade: the person who is useless at hoops gets the Brain room, and the score is shared.
How an hour here is different from an arcade hour
- One price, no tokens. A session is $32.99 per person for 60 minutes or $38.99 for 90, the same every day of the week, and it covers every room.
- Everything is open. All thirty rooms are available to your team for the whole session. You choose the order and you can go back to any room.
- You play together. The score belongs to the team, not to whoever has the most tokens. Groups bigger than six split into teams and race each other on the leaderboard.
- The difficulty is yours to pick. Every room has three levels, chosen at the door each time you enter, and clearing a higher level scores more.
Who it suits
Friends who want something to compete at, couples (two people is a full team), families with players aged 7 and up, and bigger groups who split into teams. Friday and Saturday sessions run until midnight, so it works as a night out as well as an afternoon. Teenagers tend to go straight for the leaderboard: replaying a room at a harder level to beat their own score is the fastest way up it.
Before you book
- Ages. 7 and up. Under-13s play with an adult on their team; under-18s need a waiver signed by a parent or guardian.
- Wear comfortable clothes and running shoes. The Physical rooms involve climbing and moving quickly.
- Food. There is no food service during a regular session, so eat before or after. Private bookings get their own party area and can bring their own food — see events and parties.
- Hours. Monday to Thursday 4pm to 10pm, Friday 4pm to midnight, Saturday 10am to midnight, Sunday 10am to 10pm.
- Where. 3185 Unity Dr, Unit 1, Mississauga, ON L5L 4L5. Call (647) 361-6700 with any question.
Book a session by choosing a date and a time. Bookings can be rescheduled with at least 24 hours' notice; the FAQ has the full terms.