Exertion Games Lab

Understanding a Socially Awkward Digital Play Journey

This paper examines how socially awkward experiences can serve as a source of engagement in digital games, using a physical multiplayer game called Musical Embrace as its case study.

• Social awkwardness, usually treated as a flaw, can be deliberately designed into digital games as a source of engagement, particularly when it arises from close physical proximity and whole-body interaction between players.
• Awkwardness does not stay at a constant level during play; it follows an arc that rises and falls, which the authors map onto Freytag's five-act structure (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement), peaking during initial partner pairing and exploration.
• Designers should plan for the temporal shape of awkwardness across a play session rather than treating it as uniform discomfort, since curiosity and mild embarrassment give way to focused cooperation once players grasp the mechanics.