Robert Yang's 'We Dwell in Possibility' Is a Queer Sex Game

Robert Yang, a professor and developer known for queer-themed games, has released 'We Dwell in Possibility', a browser-based game created with illustrator Eleanor Davis and musician aya for the Manchester International Festival's Virtual Factory project. The game, titled after an Emily Dickinson poem, is described as 'an LGBTQ SimCity focused on landscape architecture'. Players interact with algorithm-generated queer naked characters in a garden, placing architectural and natural elements that influence characters' desires, beliefs (represented by hats), and bodies. Characters may oppose certain structures and try to remove them; players can collaborate, retrieve, or discard elements, or simply observe how the community develops politically and architecturally. A session lasts about ten minutes, ending when night falls. Yang noted in an interview that unlike his previous games, which focus on inhabiting another body, this is a simulation requiring distance. He also criticized gaming culture as 'a hundred years behind' other creative cultures, noting that even nudity is controversial for many gamers. The game was launched for the 2021 Manchester International Festival (July 1–18) and remains playable on the Virtual Factory website.