More than 30 movement games, rounds of 2 to 3 minutes, and a score that goes up live on the wall. Below: the mechanics that are true of all of them, and the games we can name today, in full.
An hour-long session starts from 300 MDL for the whole group, and the per-person price falls as the group grows.
Hai Pixel is the first and only interactive LED floor venue in Chisinau. More than 30 movement games run on floors that read pressure: you step on a tile and the tile answers, so your step is the controller rather than a handset. A round lasts 2 to 3 minutes, the score goes up live on the LED wall, and a session is a run of short rounds rather than one long game. Up to 8 people play on one floor at a time, and sessions booked online run from 2 to 24 players, which is 1 to 3 floors. It is played in grip socks.
The floor mid-round. The colours are not decoration: in most games, a tile's colour is the instruction.
Mechanics
How a floor game works, whichever one it is
You do not need the full list to know what is about to happen. Six things are true of every game in the room.
The floor reads pressure
Every tile has LEDs under the surface and feels the weight that lands on it. There is no handset and no controller: your step is the input. That is why a game takes ten seconds to learn, even if you have never played anything on a screen.
The 2 to 3 minute round is the unit
Nothing here lasts an hour. A game is one round of 2 to 3 minutes, then the score closes and something else starts. An hour of session time means many short rounds back to back, with short breaks between them.
The score is public
The LED wall shows the score live, in front of everyone. That is the engine of the whole evening: people do not come back onto the floor for the game, they come back for the rematch.
Team against team, or every player for themselves
The same games run in teams or individually. Bigger groups do better in teams, because a team score covers the gap between players. Smaller groups usually prefer the individual leaderboard.
Eight players per floor
Past eight people on the same floor there is nowhere left to step and the game falls apart. That is why a group splits: 1 floor up to 8 players, 2 floors up to 16, 3 floors up to 24.
The wall is a second surface
The LED wall is not only a scoreboard. It is interactive, played with the hands and at height, where the floor is played with the feet. One room, two surfaces that ask different things of the body.
The tiles up close. Each one answers to the weight that lands on it, so your step is the controller.
The hall holds more than one floor. A big group does not crowd onto a single floor, it splits across them.
The session
What an hour looks like, from the door to the final standings
A session is not one long game. It is a chain of short rounds, and between them everything changes.
You get your socks
It is played in grip socks, and they are mandatory. If you did not bring a pair, you get one from us for 30 MDL.
The operator starts the first game
The rules take a few sentences and are explained before each round. You need to know nothing in advance, and the briefing comes in Romanian, Russian or English.
You play the round
Two to three minutes on the floor, with the score building live on the wall.
The game changes
After the round the score closes and a different game starts. Big groups rotate players so everyone gets floor time.
The hour ends on a leaderboard
The last round is the one everybody remembers, because that is where the standings are decided.
The games
The games we describe publicly today
There are more than 30 games in the room. Below are 4 of them, described properly, including the cases where they are the wrong choice. We publish the rest as we document them, one game at a time. A short accurate list beats a long approximate one, so this page is incomplete for now and we would rather say so.
These descriptions say what a game is for, not the full rulebook. The operator explains the exact rules before the round.
A speed game is won in the first two steps.
Who is First
How it plays
A reaction game. The floor lights the target and the round goes to whoever reaches it first. It repeats until time runs out, and what separates people is how fast the eye sees and the foot starts. It is the bluntest game in the room: there is no strategy to build, only reflexes.
Round length
A 2 to 3 minute round
How many players
From 2 players up, to 8 on one floor. With a bigger group it runs on parallel floors and the scores get compared.
Which ages
Lands best with school-age children and competitive adults. A small child will lose steadily to a bigger one, because it all comes down to stride.
Who should skip it
Skip it when the group has wide gaps in age or mobility. Nobody enjoys losing every round before it starts.
When the floor splits into safe and unsafe, the rule is clear in the first second.
The Floor is Lava
How it plays
The floor splits into safe tiles and lava. For the length of the round you cannot stay on lava, so you keep moving to safe ground. It is the easiest game in the room to explain, because the name is the rule, and a group of people who do not know each other almost always starts here.
Round length
A 2 to 3 minute round
How many players
Good from 2 to 8 on one floor. Works in teams too, with the floors running in parallel.
Which ages
Works from the youngest up to adults, precisely because the rule needs no explaining.
Who should skip it
Not for anyone who cannot change direction quickly or is unsteady on their feet. There is a lot of stepping and it is fast.
A co-op game looks exactly like this: everyone on the floor at once, nobody on the side.
Eliminate the Grid
How it plays
A co-op game. The floor is a lit grid and the group's job is to clear it completely, cell by cell, before time runs out. You are not playing against each other, you are playing against the clock, and whoever is quicker shares the floor instead of taking it.
Round length
A 2 to 3 minute round
How many players
Up to 8 on one floor. Of the games described here, this is the one we recommend for a group whose members have not met.
Which ages
Works with mixed ages, small children included, precisely because nobody is knocked out and nobody sits on the side.
Who should skip it
If the group came strictly for competition and a leaderboard, it will feel gentle. Put it at the start of the session as a warm-up, not at the end.
When the floor changes colour, the task changes with it. This one is played with the eyes as much as the feet.
Color Madness
How it plays
The floor calls a colour and you have to get onto tiles of that colour before the round closes. It sounds simple until the colours start changing faster than you move, and then the game stops being about running and starts being about how fast you decide.
Round length
A 2 to 3 minute round
How many players
From 2 to 8 on one floor.
Which ages
It needs colour recognition and fast decisions, so it lands from school age up. Younger children enjoy it, but they are playing the running, not the score.
Who should skip it
If someone in the group struggles to tell colours apart, this game takes them out of the competition through no fault of their own. Tell the operator and ask for a different one.
Floor and wall
The floor and the wall are not the same game
They are two different interactive surfaces in one room, and this is the thing people most often mix up on the phone.
The floor
Horizontal, played with the feet, reads pressure. This is where the group goes, where the running happens and where nearly every game is decided. Up to 8 players per floor, up to 3 floors in a session booked online.
The LED wall
Vertical, played with the hands and at height. It also carries the live score during the floor rounds. It asks something different of the body, so it changes the rhythm of a session without changing the room.
From the room
What the floor looks like with a game running
Photographs from real sessions, in the hall at Grand Hall. Nothing rendered, nothing from a catalogue.
A group of friends on one floor. Past eight people on the same floor, there is nowhere left to step.
A round runs two to three minutes. That is the whole thing, then the score closes.
Adults and children play the same games. In the speed games the adult wins; in the co-op ones speed is not the point.
Big groups split across floors and rotate players between rounds, so everyone gets floor time.
At birthdays the floor takes two hours, and the rest of the time the group is in the private celebration area.
The hall with the game lights off. 360 square metres in Grand Hall, second floor.
Between rounds
What happens when you are off the floor
The rounds are short, so part of a session is spent next to the floor rather than on it.
Where you sit down between rounds.
The bar is next to the floor, not in another part of the building.
Where the parents who stay off the floor wait.
The decor around the floor. The room's light does not go down between rounds.
The logo wall and the bar, a few steps from the floor.
The room's light is part of the game. If someone in the group is sensitive to strong light, call us first.
Honestly
Who this is wrong for
We would rather say this here than have you find out after paying. If you recognise yourself below, call us before you book.
A very light child, a child carried in someone's arms, or a visitor using a wheelchair
The floor works on pressure. Below a certain weight a tile does not fire every time, and a player who does not trigger tiles reliably is playing a poorer game than everyone else, even while standing in the middle of them. A carried child presses through somebody else, and a wheelchair presses on a small contact area and does not produce the same response. You can come in and have a good time, but we will not promise you the same experience, and we would rather you knew in advance.
A child who cannot lose
Nearly everything here ends with a score on the wall, in front of everyone. For a child who takes losing hard, that is not a lost round, it is a public loss. If you know that about them, tell the operator at the start: the co-op games run without an individual leaderboard, and Eliminate the Grid exists for exactly this case.
A group that wants one long story
There is no hour-long narrative here that you step into and disappear inside. There are 2 to 3 minute rounds, one after another. If your group is after continuous immersion, the floor will feel like a series of mini-games, because that is what it is.
Anyone who wants quiet
Loud music, strong light and fast colour changes, throughout. If somebody in the group is sensitive to flashing light or to noise, call us before booking and we will tell you what we can adjust.
Anyone who does not want to play in socks
Nobody goes onto the floor in shoes and nobody plays barefoot. Grip socks, mandatory, for every player.
Read next
The guides that carry on from here
This page describes the games. The pieces below answer what people ask straight afterwards: how the technology works, how many fit, from what age, what runs on the wall and what it costs.
More than 30 in the room. Publicly we describe 4 for now, on this page, and we add the rest as we document them. When you come in, the full list is on the screen and the operator will tell you what suits your group.
How long is a game?
A round runs 2 to 3 minutes. An hour-long session means many of those rounds back to back, not one long game.
How many people can play at once?
Eight on one floor. Sessions booked online run from 2 to 24 players, which is 1 to 3 floors. Above 24 people we arrange the event by phone.
Do I need special socks?
Yes. It is played in grip socks, mandatory for every player. If you did not bring a pair, you get one from us for 30 MDL.
What is the minimum age?
We do not have a fixed minimum age, we have a physical limit: the floor reads pressure, so a very light child does not trigger the tiles every time. Small children enjoy it, but they play a different game, and the speed games are not for them.
Do we choose the games?
Tell the operator what the group wants: leaderboard competition, co-op games, or a mix. They start the games and change them between rounds.
Are the floor and the LED wall the same thing?
No. The floor is horizontal, played with the feet, and reads pressure. The LED wall is vertical, played with the hands, and it also carries the live score during the floor rounds.
What does an hour cost?
An hour-long session starts from 300 MDL for the whole group, not per person, and the per-person price falls as the group grows. The full table, by day and by group size, is on the pricing page.
Come and play
Constantin Negruzzi Blvd 2/4, Grand Hall, second floor. Open daily, 10:00-22:00.
