Beat the Bomb
Audio By Carbonatix
Okay, so it doesn’t feel much like winter in Colorado right now. Denver is setting records for high temps, including an official (and ridiculous) 70 balmy degrees on Christmas Day. Makes it tough to disbelieve climate science, right? Or it should, anyway.
In a normal New Year, Mile High residents would be considering how to spend their free time while the weather outside is frightful. Luckily, we have quite the selection of indoor activities from which to choose — joints designed in part to entertain and amuse during the darkness of January, places where we don’t need to worry about frostbite or pants frozen with snow or runny red noses. These are places to kick up your heels — once you’ve found a place to hang your puffy coat.
Sure, there are the old standbys: museums from the Children’s Museum to Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Escape Rooms of various themes, roller skating and Meow Wolf. Those are all great options. But there are also more unique and surprising venues in town, of which to take advantage on a snow day. What places, you ask? Here are a happy handful of awesome indoor entertainment options that are quirky or curious or just plain cool…and which deserve a visit even if the weather doesn’t turn.
All Out Smash
3899 North Jackson Street
Prices start at $35 for a Solo Quick Smash (10 minutes)
If you haven’t tried a rage room, get ready to release some pent-up anger. Someone cut you off in traffic and then flip you off? Take your bagel sammie from the break room fridge? Fail to clean up after their dog defecates on your hellstrip? This here’s the place where you work all that shit out. Westword regulars this past year agreed; All Out Smash won Reader’s Choice for Best Entertainment Venue in Best of Denver 2025. You can break stuff and break free from your stress in the Smash Room; channel your creative energy into something colorful in our Splatter Room, where walls become canvases and your emotions the paint, or if precision and skill are more your style, visit the Axe-throwing Tunnels to hit some bullseyes. Who says violence never solved anything?
Beat the Bomb
3863 Steele Street
Prices start at $40 per person, four-person minimum
Okay, so this is an Escape Room, but one that can blow up in your face. Literally. As our own Kristen Fiore wrote back in April 2025 when Beat the Bomb debuted at the York Street Yards, this ain’t your mother’s escape room. This is one where if you don’t prevail, you’ll face an explosion of paint, or foam, or slime — and all the while bystanders can sit witness to your folly safe behind glass and drinking beer. Perhaps they’ll cheer you on…or maybe they’ll be yelling, “DANCE MONKEY! DANCE!” Which probably means they’ve had too much to drink and ought to be cut off, but still…those scars are gonna linger. Luckily, the paint or foam or slime will wash right off…so hopefully you and your friends can do better next time. Only about one in ten teams will beat the bomb on their first try. Which means the beer garden observatory is an entertaining place to be.
Claw Den
250 Broadway
Free admission; most games are $1 a play
It’s been a thing in Japan for years now, the claw-machine arcade, but a concept that’s only just now taking hold in America. And Denver has its own claw machine emporium, the biggest in Colorado, new to a beleaguered Broadway that’s been beset with construction woes for quite some time now. So it’s good to see something new come in, especially something that appeals to the young and older alike —especially if you like Labubus. And it’s not just a one-and-done proposition, as it is with most claw games you might see at arcades. At Claw Den, players can choose to either keep their winnings or collect credits on a membership card to trade in for larger items. Like bigger and more rare Labubus.
F1 Arcade
2437 Walnut Street
Prices start at $22 per driver
If you have someone in your clan who are fans of Formula 1 racing, then this spot in RiNo is tailor-made for you — especially if you need a place to let them get some high-tech simulated thrills on some of the world’s most recognizable and famous tracks while you sip a blessedly alcoholic drink and wave indulgently as they look over with their eyes wide with excitement. F1 even offers some site-specific beverages for Denver drinkers, including one called Blucifer’s Bolt, a mix of bourbon, peach brandy, coffee, sweet vermouth, amontillado, and absinthe. If the Formula 1 cars don’t get your heart racing, that drink will. There’s food too — burgers, tacos, apps galore. But it’s the pinnacle-tech simulators that are clearly the draw at the F1 Arcade, and rightly so. They’re top-of-the-line and state-of-the-art, designed to emulate the thrills of F1 racing and allow participants to team up or go head-to-head. The F1 arcade may be the only spot in town where drinking and driving are encouraged–so long as you keep them both safely indoors.
iFly Denver
9230 Park Meadows Drive, Lone Tree
Prices start at $99 for two flights
The late, greatly missed Christopher Reeve once made us believe that a man could fly. Now, anyone in Denver can do the same, courtesy of iFly Denver, an indoor skydiving experience that brings the inimitable feeling of purposefully jumping out of a perfectly good airplane down to the ground, almost. It’s a wind tunnel, of course, but those who have tried it and know what they’re talking about say that it feels very much like the same thing, like plummeting to the earth, only you’re maybe a couple of yardsticks off the floor. iFly can work its magic with anyone from three to 103, so sorry, toddlers and great-great-great grandpas — you either missed or have yet to hit your super-fun fake-flying window.
ImmersiveGamebox
825 Albion Street
Prices vary by selection, but adult fees are usually $35 for one sixty-minute experience
It’s video game fun, but without joysticks or controllers, and full-body style! The ImmersiveGamebox venue features different storylines licensed from some of your favorite properties: Batman, Ghostbusters, Squid Game, Angry Birds, Paw Patrol, and more. And they’re presented in private, interactive digital rooms where groups play games using their physical selves to manipulate the game, interacting with touch-screen walls and projections alike. It’s all very high-tech, and someone in your group will probably try to explain how the whole thing works. Tell them that it’s just a game, and they should really just relax. Here’s where games come alive; your first step into a new world. Holodeck, anyone?
Lava Island
452 Sable Boulevard, Aurora
$20 all day pass ($16 for Seniors 60+)
Honestly, just invoking the weird game that literally everyone played as a kid is enough to make this place worth a visit. The floor is lava! You can only get to the kitchen by throwing pillows on the floor to serve as stepping stones! YOU TOUCHED THE CARPET! YOU’RE DEAD! (And all you wanted was more Cap’n Crunch before Thundarr the Barbarian came back on.) Aurora’s Lava Island takes the spirit of that kids’ game and does it full-scale, with trampolines, slides, foam pits and enough jumping-around to work off any and all sugar rushes brought on by the available funnel cakes and sodas (and more, sure, but what more do you need?) It’s one of Denver’s coolest spots for kids’ parties, too — but adults who say they don’t have fun are big fat liars.
Malibu Jack’s
10001 Grant Street, Thornton
$44.99 Unlimited Attractions Pass; alacarte pricing also available
Malibu Jack’s bills itself as an “indoor amusement park,” and it’s the newcomer on this list as well, only having been open since early November in the Thornton Town Center. But it charges into the field strong, boasting a whole host of indoor activities that might be offered outside at other venues–and some that are unique to Malibu Jack’s. In fact, much of what this location offers is similar to Elitch Gardens, only at a fraction of the price, and open throughout the year because, you know: roofs and walls. But seriously, check out the list of rides: Spin-Zone Bumper Cars, a spinning pin-you-against-the-wall-sideways “Wipeout Centrifuge,” a spinning coaster, a dark ride 4-D simulator and even a Drop Tower! Add to that mini-golf, go-karts, laser tag, duckpin bowling and a full arcade, and you’ve got yourself quite a day — all indoors, warm and dry, even when Denver isn’t. Malibu Jack’s has nine other sites, but this new Colorado location is the farthest west they’ve reached — so far.
Slick City Action Park
14500 West Colfax, Lakewood
Ninety minutes for $27.99; 120 minutes for $32.99
You know the fun is serious when a place makes you sign a waiver in order to participate — and the slide-paradise that is Slick City out in Lakewood sure does — the waiver is even available on its website. And that goes for everyone — even parents just there to supervise their kids. Because this play-place gets raucous, yo. Slick City also requires City Socks ($5 a pop, but they specify that they’re “yours to keep and re-use,” which is pretty much how all socks work, but okay), but only for participants, not spectating grandmas. But hell, Nana, get you some City Socks and slide along with everyone else, because this isn’t just for kids. In fact, you have to be over four years old to experience the main slides, like the Royal Flush, the Big Wave, the Avalanche, or the Mega Launch, to name only a few. Each slide is designed to give you a thrill and those tummy flutters in a different way. Slick City wants people to enjoy what it has to offer, no matter who you are, so it also offers discounted Family Fun days; Adults Only Nights for 18+ sliders, even Sensory Hours for those who might do better when the music is lowered, the crowds are smaller and the atmosphere is overall a bit more relaxed. Consult the website for schedules and pricing, and get to sliding. And enjoy those socks for months or years to come!
Urban Air Adventure Park
9550 East 40th Avenue (plus locations in Aurora, Littleton, and Westminster)
Prices start at $35 (tax and socks included)
Socks again. What’s with proprietary socks at these places? Socks are socks. Are these special socks in some way? Are they extra fuzzy for slickness, or less fuzzy for traction? In any case, yes, here’s another buy-our-socks venue that’s nonetheless worth the extra few bucks. Urban Air has four locations in the Denver metro (plus one down in the Springs), and each one boasts a little something different. But the Denver proper location has a ton for adults and kids alike. You can go all American Gladiator on the Battle Beam. Do it up like an American Ninja Warrior on the Warrior Course. Conquer the climbing walls, get lost in the Adventure Hub, dance on the Flash Pads, fly on the Sky Rider, and more. But if you have fond memories of rainy-day P.E. classes of your youth…you’ve gotta try Dodgeball. On trampolines. Yes, it’s two great tastes that go great together, a couple of activities you remember doing when the outside was inclement. Pelt your friends with hand-sized red balls while bouncing on trampolines. It sounds super dangerous, but also hella fun. Damn, add a parachute in there somewhere, and that’s most P.E. classes in a midwest January. Play on!
