What a skill game is
A skill game is one where the result comes down to how precisely you aim, how well you time a move, or how steady your hands are, rather than how fast you can run or how much you can remember.
At Cube Challenges in Mississauga, thirteen of the thirty rooms are Skills rooms, and each one is that idea at full scale: real hoops, real targets, a real tilting maze, a real ring on a real wire.
If you were looking for skill games on a screen, this is not that. Every game here is played standing in a room, as a team of two to six, with the score tracked on RFID wristbands and shown on a live leaderboard.
The thirteen Skills rooms
Aim
- Buzzer Beater: two hoops, a clock, and as many baskets as you can score before the buzzer.
- Target 8: land as many balls as you can in the rotating targets.
- Hitball: roll the balls and score in the holes.
- Shooting Farm: crank the well to power the guns, then shoot the targets in the farm before time runs out.
- Slingshot Madness: find the archery targets hidden among Cubio's belongings and hit them with your slingshot.
- Subbuteo: beat the goalkeeper.
Timing
- Lights On: perception and quick reaction, hitting the lights as they come on.
- Hangry Monkey: on a jump pad in front of a screen, fill the basket with the fruit the monkey asks for while dodging the barrels she throws.
- 7 Blocks: build the block shown on the screen out of the cubes in the room before the one on the screen falls.
- Bubble Trouble: complete the words on the screen, fast.
Steady hands and balance
- Crystal Maze: tilt the playfield and guide the ball into the correct hole. There is more than one.
- Crazy Circuit: hold the ring steady along the route from start to finish without losing all your lives.
- Color Twist: hands and feet on the coloured floor wherever the wall shows, without falling over.
Which Skills room first
Buzzer Beater and Lights On are the usual openers: the rules are obvious in a second, the result is immediate, and every player gets a turn. Crystal Maze and Crazy Circuit reward a second visit, once the team has learned that steady beats fast.
7 Blocks and Hangry Monkey are where a team finds out who talks clearly under a clock, because one player plays while the rest call the next move.
Take a room at level one to learn it, then come back a level up. Clearing a harder level scores more, so the second half of a session is usually spent replaying the rooms the team was good at rather than opening new ones. A missed attempt is replayed by scanning back in.
Why the Skills rooms suit everyone
None of them involve climbing, so they are where a mixed team meets: the player who skipped the Physical rooms and the one who skipped the Brain rooms both get a turn at Buzzer Beater. Every room has three difficulty levels, chosen at the door, and clearing a harder level scores more. Players must be 7 or older, and under-13s play with an adult on the team.
The other seventeen rooms are ten Physical rooms (climbing, crossing, running) and seven Brain rooms (memory, maths, pattern). Most teams mix 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.