What a Brain room is
Seven of the thirty rooms at Cube Challenges in Mississauga are Brain rooms: a clock, a task that needs memory, maths, pattern or music, and no climbing anywhere. Your team of two to six plays them together, shares one score on RFID wristbands, and picks one of three difficulty levels at every door.
Clear the room and the points go on the team score; miss it, and you can scan back in and try again.
They are the rooms where the quietest player on the team tends to turn out to be the useful one, which is a good reason to put a mixed group through all three categories rather than letting the loudest voice choose every room.
The seven Brain rooms
- Bomb Squad: one calculation. An incorrect one blows up the building.
- Genius: the hardest arithmetic in the building, done fast, to prove which team has the genius.
- Rainbow Mind: a colour station each, the correct button combinations, fast and without a mistake.
- Worlderland: answer the questions and match the photos to countries on the world map.
- All In: push the correct cards on the walls before time runs out.
- Candit: follow the on-screen instructions to make the desserts in a candy shop, without letting the sweets distract you.
- Clef De Sol: press play, then play some music.
Playing the Brain rooms as a team
The Brain rooms are built for a team that splits the work. In Rainbow Mind every player has a colour station of their own. In Bomb Squad and Genius one person reads, one checks and one presses, because a wrong answer under a clock is usually a rushed one. In Worlderland the player who recognises the photo is rarely the one nearest the map. Agree who does what before the room starts, and swap roles in the next one.
Choosing your level
Every room has three difficulty levels and the team chooses one each time it scans in. Clearing a harder level scores more, so the usual pattern is to take a Brain room at level one to learn it, then go back at level three once the team has a system. Players must be 7 or older, under-13s play with an adult on the team, and a child and an adult can play the same room at different levels on the same score.
Who they suit
Anyone who would rather think than climb: the Brain rooms are where a player who skipped the Physical category still carries the team. Kids from 7 at level one. Couples, because a team of two shares one score. And every mixed group, because the other twenty-three rooms are Physical and Skills, and most teams end up playing all three categories in a session.
Prices and booking
$32.99 per person for 60 minutes or $38.99 for 90, the same price every day of the week, covering all thirty rooms. Book a session by choosing a date and a time. 3185 Unity Dr, Unit 1, Mississauga, ON L5L 4L5; Monday to Thursday 4pm to 10pm, Friday 4pm to midnight, Saturday 10am to midnight, Sunday 10am to 10pm.