Musical embrace

BACKGROUND Exertion games (exergames) are computer games that require physical effort from users and thus offer physical health benefits, unlike traditional computer games. The research is focused on the merging of play and the active human body and spans human-computer interaction, game design, computer science, information science, sports science, and mechanical and electrical engineering. A past Fulbright Scholar, labelled World Expert in Exertion Games, Mueller leads teams at the Exertion Lab, RMIT in trying to best design such games to support engaging experiences to facilitate social and physical health benefits. The ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference on human-computer interaction. CONTRIBUTION While one thinks of socially awkward experiences as something to avoid, examples from the non-digital entertainment domain suggest that social awkwardness experiences can facilitate human interaction skills, brining digital games further into the province of traditional play. There has been little research into exploring social awkwardness in digital games and Musical Embrace addresses the gap. It is a digital game that promotes close physical proximity to address the social awkwardness of collaborating to operate virtual navigation through a hanging pillow control unit held between their bodies players (strangers) can achieve in the game. In observing pairs of users, the researchers derived a set of strategies for players to take control of social awkwardness. SIGNIFICANCE As well as being part of this prestigious conference program Musical Embrace was accepted for the Games for Change, ANZ 2012 and was presented at Fun and Games 2012, and has been included in further papers on the subject. Renowned game academic Bernie DeKoven says, 'a direct heir to the spirit of Knots or the Lap Game or People Pass. Socially awkward beneficial bodily interactions. What fun!'