Socially awkward experiences are often looked upon as something to be avoided. However, examples from the non-digital entertainment domain suggest that social awkwardness can also facilitate engaging experiences. Yet there has been little research into exploring social awkwardness in digital games. In response, we present Musical Embrace, a digital game that promotes close physical proximity through the use of a novel pillow-like controller to facilitate socially awkward play between strangers. Through our observations from demonstrating Musical Embrace at a number of events, we have derived a set of strategies to engage players by "facilitating social awkwardness", allowing players to "transform social awkwardness" 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 in digital games and guide them when using it to facilitate engaging play experiences.

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Socially awkward interactions are often regarded as something that is to be avoided, nonetheless encompasses the potential to be ingredients for compelling play. Although examples exist in the nondigital games domain to support this point (e.g. Twister), we've found that there has been little exploration conducted on social awkwardness when it comes to digital play. In response, we present Musical Embrace, a digital game that calls for strangers to collaboratively apply pressure, in the form of awkward whole-body movements in close physical proximity, to a novel suspended pillow-like controller; as means of traversing a virtual environment. We use Musical Embrace to identify design tactics that utilize social awkwardness, to drive digital play. With our work, we hope to encourage designers to consider socially awkward interactions as a compelling ingredient for digital games.