Activate Columbus
Stepping into Activate is like entering a real-life video game with its lasers, light-up floors, and glowing buttons on walls. Each room is a treasure trove of different games, each designed to get your heart pumping and brain working. The sheer variety of games is staggering. We barely scratched the surface during our visit and are already scheming our next visit.
The whole place is high-tech, using bracelets to keep your scores, sign you up for games, and even open your locker! We took a group of six and reserved a time slot online. When booking, the discounts grow the larger your group. If you hit the maximum of six people, you only spend $20 per person on weekdays and $25 on weekends. After filling out the waiver online, check-in was effortless. We received bracelets to scan into our group locker to hold our things and then used a bracelet to link to our email to keep track of our scores.
When we were all set to go, we left the lobby’s brightness and entered the dim main facility, which had multi-colored light strips lighting the rooms and ceiling. In front of each room was a screen with the different game variations that resided inside and the chance to choose your difficulty. As beginners, our difficulty started at level one but advanced until level ten after each success. After selecting your variation and level, simply scan your bracelet and wait a minute to enter the game. The games are designed for groups of 2-5, so we split our group into two groups of three and took off.
With so many games to choose from, we quickly found our favorites and started competing against each other. The lasers were a hit, as we dodged a maze of moving beams to make it to the other side. Another game that got us hooked was the tiles that lit up, challenging us to run from color to color before time ran out. Some games were more about puzzles, while others tested our speed and agility. We played so many games, but as we were leaving, we realized that we hadn’t even visited all the different rooms.
We had a blast as a group of adults. However, I am itching to take my younger brothers there to compete against them. The age restriction is six years old and up, and some game variations are more challenging than others. The games in each room were played solely by your group, but a wall featured leaderboards that compared scores with other players in your location and all over the country. (Josh didn’t make the leaderboard, but I did. I won’t let him live it down.) We loved our time there and would recommend Activate to all! Let me know if you beat my high score on the leaderboards!
