Robert Yang and his collaborators Eddie Cameron, Fernando Ramallo, and Kevin Watters’ Fire Island Video Game is a massively multiplayer mural played via text message, where “residents” live in a virtual Fire Island Pines simulation and communally map-out its sexual geography.

In real-life, people walk up to the “mural,” a large screen projection installed in the Fire Island Pines Harbor, and use their personal phones to text message a special phone number. When they text, their messages will affect what happens on the screen.

In the game, the player’s avatar (a randomized 3D human with their name floating above their head) walks around a reimagined virtual Fire Island Pines and interacts with other avatars semi-autonomously (like in The Sims). They will see their avatar perform animations with emoji/text pop-ups to show their thoughts and actions, for example a sexy hookup might involve two avatars performing a kissing animation with hearts floating upwards.

Download the Final project: wish you were here…