Mix Jackson Pollock with Jimi Hendrix, plus a touch of Peter Max and Pink Floyd, and you get the general idea of what Jessica Dancisin calls “Pittsburgh’s one-of-a-kind blacklight splatter-paint experience.”

Actually, the music pumped into Primal Pigment is customers’ choice. But the glow of the gobs of liquid that serve as the main attraction tend toward a ’60s-style psychedelic vibe.

“There’s a lot of neon,” Dancisin said, “so we’re definitely living back in that universe.”

She and her business partners, Michael Chiappinelli — he’s her boyfriend, too — and John Zacchia, opened Primal Pigment in the same Verona building as their five-year-old interactive escape-type adventure, Puzzle Room Pittsburgh.

“The word that we speak on for upstairs and downstairs is immersion,” she said. “We love to create these really immersive experiences.”

Downstairs at 722 Allegheny River Blvd. is the paint room and all that goes with it, most notably an array of devices for launching colorful projectiles and onetime-use polyethylene suits for protection against what effectively becomes airborne art.

For a souvenir of their escapades, each Primal Pigment participant receives a canvas — the size varies, up to a whopping two by three feet — that in turn receives, if you will, a Technicolor coat.

“Some people do get a little protective of their canvas,” Dancisin said. “But for most, it’s just a free-for-all.”

A typical group is four to six people, and they spend half an hour or so bombarding everything in sight using squirt guns of various sizes, electric-powered included, and sundry implements such as loaded balloons, which in Dancisin’s view can be the most fun.

“We call them paint bombs, which you’re welcome to throw at friends,” she said. “We also have a three-person slingshot and a target in there. Drop your canvas down and catch the splatter from those.”

As far as participants’ age range, she explained:

“My 70-year-old grandmother tests everything for us, from the slides upstairs to the paint room. So if she can do it, anybody can do it.”

That would be Marilyn Dancisin, whom her granddaughter credits with plenty of hard work toward helping to ensure the success of the dual businesses.

Puzzle Room Pittsburgh features three compartmentalized areas — The Study, Seeking Sasquatch and Escape the Undead — in which teams of people work together to solve a series of clues and riddles so that they can “escape” in 60 minutes or less.

“The story behind The Study is that there is a madman who collected four powerful artifacts to take over the world,” Jessica Dancisin He’s out getting the curse to activate them. So it’s a save-the-world mission. You’re breaking in to find those four artifacts and steal them before he gets back.”

She referred to Seeking Sasquatch as “definitely our most talked-about room,” with an array of handmade installations, including a 14-foot waterfall, simulating a wooded environment.

“The premise of the story is that you went into the forest hunting Bigfoot, but he’s found you,” she said. “And these are Bigfoot’s forests. So you have to escape before daylight fades.”

Alternatively, you can Escape the Undead.

“This one’s a little bit different. In most escape rooms, you’re trying to escape out of,” Dancisin said. “For this room, you’re actually trying to break into the safe room to get away from the horde of zombies.”

She noted Chiappinelli’s attention to detail with regard to realistic-type touches of red on the walls.

“Every day I came in, he had a concoction of ‘blood’ to try to get the perfect splatter,” she said. “So once he finally had the perfect consistency and used the perfect component, he came in and had a story for every single blood splatter.”

A graduate of Penn Hills High School, as is Zacchia, Dancisin earned her degree in fashion merchandising and management from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. She and Chiappinelli, who grew up in Penn Hills before moving to Jeannette and graduating from high school there, both have some background in theater.

“Michael has been building forever, any and everything. So a lot of that experience came from his own guessing and testing,” she said. “It’s kind of a creepy thing to say, but we constantly tell people that he builds the bones and I put on the pretty skin. That’s exactly how it is.”

For more information, visit www.puzzleroompittsburgh.com.

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