Musical embrace: facilitating engaging play experiences through social awkwardness

Authors:
Amy Huggard;Anushka De Mel;Jayden Garner;Cagdas "Chad" Toprak;Alan D. Chatham;Florian Mueller
Affiliations:
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia;RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia;RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia;RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia;RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia;RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Venue:
CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Year:
2013

Citing 2
Cited 1

Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals

Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
Uncomfortable interactions

Combining moving bodies with digital elements: design space between players and screens

Proceedings of The 9th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment: Matters of Life and Death

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Socially awkward experiences are often looked upon as something to be avoided. However, examples from the traditional games domain suggest that social awkwardness can facilitate engaging experiences. Yet so far, there has been little research into social awkwardness and digital games. In acknowledgement of this, we present Musical Embrace, a digital game that promotes close physical contact between two strangers, through the use of a novel pillow-like controller, in order to navigate a virtual soundscape. Through our observations from demonstrating Musical Embrace at a number of events, we have procured a set of strategies intend on engaging players by "facilitating" social awkwardness, allowing players to "transform" while also letting players take "control" of social awkwardness. With our work we hope to inspire game designers to consider the potential of social awkwardness and guide them when using it for engaging playful experiences.