Alien Hominid

You could poke him with a pillow and kill him.

Alien Hominid is a 2-D Side-scrolling Action Game that originated on Newgrounds. The flash version seen on the site was programmed by Tom Fulp and designed by Dan Paladin. It was later made into a multi-platform game in 2004 through 0~3 Entertainment and is well known amongst gamers and the Newgrounds community.

This game stars a little yellow alien who has crash-landed on Earth, and tries to escape the clutches of the FBI, Communist Russians and Area 51 agents to get home. Fat Kids help him along the way, but the story doesn't get much more complex than that. The gameplay is reminiscent of games like Metal Slug, with the player being a One-Hit-Point Wonder that runs through wave upon wave of enemies to reach the bosses at the end of each level. It also contains a few mini-games. Overall, the game has been very well received by critics.

The flash version is available here.

Tropes used in Alien Hominid include:

• Ambidextrous Sprite: The Hominid will hold its gun with its left or right hand depending on which way it faces.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: A wide variety of hats, wigs and headwear is unlockable.
• Auto-Scrolling Level: Most of level 2-4 scrolls horizontally and a portion of level 2-5 scrolls vertically.
• Background Boss: The second-to-last boss sits in the background the entire time.
• Badass Adorable: The title character.
• Chain-Reaction Destruction: Stronger enemies, minibosses and bosses.
• Charged Attack: Available from the get-go for the Hominid.
• Defeat Means Friendship: The FBI's Install Ball.
• Easy Mode Mockery: You get 99 continues on thumbsucker mode, but you cannot go past either level 1-3 or 1-5, depending on the console version you have, until you choose a harder difficulty.
• Elite Mooks: A bunch of these exist, notably the jetpack-wearing ones and the flame/ice-thrower ones.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The Soviet leader dies like this: he gets carried away by a giant eagle he attracted earlier in an attempt to kill Alien Hominid. It drops him on a Conveyor Belt of Doom, which moves him towards a giant buzzsaw. Just right before he touches it, the scene shifts back to Alien Hominid.
• The Greys: The boss of 3-1.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: At the start of Level 2-5, the Soviet leader scatters birdseed on the ground, which attracts giant eagles that kill you by grabbing and eating you if you touch them. Immediately after that is a Conveyor Belt of Doom with giant moving buzzsaws mincing anything on it (which you have to move under). After his defeat, the Soviet leader tries to get away from you via parachute, only to be grabbed by one of the eagles he attracted, which drops him on the conveyor belt. Stunned, he moves towards the buzzsaw... Cue Gory Discretion Shot.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The easiest difficulty level is called "thumbsucker".
• Knife Nut: The Hominid pulls one out and slices at an enemy whenever he's in melee range.
• Made of Plasticine: The FBI, Soviet Soldiers and Area 51 Guards. For goodness sake, these humans take one regular shot to die, even less than a regular desert scorpion (which take three).
• Mirror Boss: The final boss is a super-buff version of the Alien Hominid with better attacks, a giant version of your spaceship and a lot more health than you.
• Nice Hat: There's plenty to choose from.
• Nintendo Hard: Even on easy mode, with five continues and spawning each time with a shield and doing increased damage to enemies, you will still die over and over again.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The Alien Hominid and various mooks.
• One-Hit Polykill: Possible with the charge shot or various weapon power-ups.
• Puzzle Boss: One of the bosses in the final stages is a "Simon Says" type boss. You have to shoot the colour in the correct order, each round adding an extra. Get the wrong colour? You get shocked and die, and have to repeat the whole process again.
• Shout-Out: Level 1-3 has various street signs, with one of the signs having the word "Pico", in it, referencing another of Tom Fulp's works; the Pico Series. Others are scattered throughout the game.
• Tractor Beam: The Hominid's ship has one. As does the final boss'...
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Levels 1-5 and 2-6 are Shoot'Em Up levels.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: There are plenty of ways to kill your foes, from plain-old shooting them to biting their heads off. Moreso though, there are plenty of ways to kill off your teammates in co-op mode, the best of which is in level 1-4. One player can get into the UFO, use the Tractor Beam to capture their teammate, then drop them into a woodchipper.
• Violation of Common Sense: You can die by staying underground too long. Doing this in a certain spot gives you a shark fin hat.
• Warmup Boss: The boss of level 1-4. WARNING: DO NOT DAMAGE HEAD. He was much harder in the flash game though.
  • In both the console releases and the original flash game, the first mid-boss easily qualifies. This boss has an extremely simplistic and obvious pattern with easy-to-dodge attacks.
• Whack a Monster: The electric sockets Mini Boss.