There is probably not a gamer alive who hasn’t wondered what life would be like if their favorite video games were real. Patrick Jean tells a short story about the chaos that would ensue in his film Pixels. The expertly animated short illustrates a day in New York when a cloud of pixels takes over and transforms the city into a life-size video game.

The results don’t seem nearly as fun as most of us would have imagined – rather than constant fun, the pixels bring about destruction. As landmarks crumble and the pixel epidemic grows, it becomes clear that we should all be grateful the video games have so far stayed in their place.