Hobo is a series of Beat 'em Up flash video games developed by Armor Games and SeethingSwarm. It's centered around the titular Hobo, a man who always seeks to sleep but finds himself having to fight his way through people who bother him.
The series plays as a classic Beat 'Em Up game in a scrolling map, where the player has to pass through stages with different kinds of enemies while avoiding to lose all of their health. As well as having the typical fighting moves like punching, kicking and dashing, the player can use objects around the environment, weapons dropped by enemies or unlockable Combos to gain an advantage.
Due to the discontinuation of Flash support, the games are no longer playable on Armor Games and SeethingSwarm's official websites (as well as most other Flash sites that sponsored it). However, they can still be played on Newgrounds.
List of installments:
- Hobo (2008)
- Hobo: Prison Brawl (2009)
- Hobo 3: Wanted (2010)
- Hobo 4: Total War (2010)
- Hobo 5: Space Brawls (2011)
- Hobo 6: Hell (2012)
- Hobo 7: Heaven (2012)
The Hobo series provides examples of:
- Anti-Hero: Saying Hobo is a hero is arguably a large stretch, since he starts a bunch of brawls against civilians for no reason in the first few games, and does the same to people in the afterlife in the last two. In fact, his sleep gets interrupted in the first two games for a good reason (staying in a "keep away" place in the first game and messing up his shared cell's toilet in Prison Brawl), and his refusal to admit it as his fault gets the police and military after him. He's not a Villain Protagonist if only due to the fact that he fights against aliens who seek to experiment on him in Space Brawls.
- Bag of Spilling: Averted for the most part, as most games have you start with all of the combos introduced in previous games while you unlock new ones. It's played straight in Space Brawls, which doesn't introduce any new combos, and it's justified in that Hobo had his combos drained out by the aliens to create clones of him.
- Blue Is Heroic: For a certain definition of "heroic", our titular protagonist wears a torn pair of blue shorts.
- Bullfight Boss: The dashing enemies are a non-boss variant. They always move at sprint speed and attack by charging at you constantly.
- Cephalothorax: Flying ones appear as Elite Mooks in Hell.
- Cheat Code: Each game features several of these, one to start from each checkpoint and another to begin with all the combos available. The games show them in the checkpoint and game completing sequences, respectively.
- Color Motif: Each game has a color motif of its own, mainly represented in the main menus and pause screens.
- Original Hobo/Total War/Hell: Red
- Prison Brawl: Green
- Wanted: Purple
- Space Brawls: Blue
- Heaven: Cyan
- Combos: There are many of these to use in the form of special abilities, which are unlocked as you progress the games and usually involve Toilet Humour.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: Most of the final bosses count, since you don't usually get to use any weapons during their fights (instead, you have to retort to combos), and they have a massive amount of health in comparison. The biggest example, however, is the tank from Total War, which arguably has the most health out of all the bosses.
- Degraded Boss:
- The first two games have a ground vehicle as the final boss. From Wanted onwards, ground vehicles appear as regular enemies.
- Likewise, Wanted features a helicopter as the final boss, and Total War sees helicopters become a regular.
- Dung Fu: Various combos involve defecating, starting with the S-A-S combo from the first game.
- Elite Mooks: There are quite a few of them, including dashing enemies, Cephalothoraxs and angels.
- Excuse Plot: Most of the games begin with someone interrupting Hobo's sleep, serving as a reason for Hobo to go through a rampage. It isn't until Space Brawls when significant plot development begins, and even still it's rather thin in nature compared to the length of the stages that you go through in-game.
- Eye Beams: The A-D-W combo introduced in Heaven has Hobo shoot lightning beams from his eyes, alongside one from his mouth.
- Eye Scream: The A-D combo introduced in Wanted has Hobo shoot his eyes out of the sockets to attack enemies. It's step-up that debuted in Total War, A-D-S, takes it a step further by also having Hobo's neck split to extend its ligaments, granting him a longer attack range.
- Fartillery/Gasshole:
- Two of the combos introduced in the first game, A-S and S-A, involve Hobo burping and farting to damage and stun enemies, respectively.
- Exaggerated with later combos derived from A-S to S-A, which also have Hobo vomiting and defecating, as well as burping/farting fire and literal explosions.
- Final Boss: Each game has one of these.
- Original Hobo: The City Dump Truck, whose driver is one of the two janitors who previously escaped from Hobo early in the game. It attacks by throwing trash cans.
- Prison Brawl: A SWAT van, which doesn't attack directly, but makes up for it by dropping SWAT officers every time it shows up.
- Wanted: A SWAT helicopter that combines the move patterns of the previous two bosses, only that it uses a machine turret instead of trash cans.
- Total War: A tank with the same dynamic as the City Dump Truck, but much stronger.
- Space Brawls: The spaceship's power core, which is responsible for the creation of the Hobo clones.
- Hell: Satan himself.
- Heaven: God himself.
- Flunky Boss: Most of the Final Bosses spawn Mooks of their own; the two exceptions are the City Dump Truck and the tank. If you defeat the boss before any of the spawned enemies, you'll have to defeat the enemies before proceeding to the end.
- Good Colors, Evil Colors: The Hobo clones in Space Brawl wear red shorts that contrast with the real Hobo's blue ones.
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: Happens both straight and inverted, as every game is book-ended with Hobo sleeping.
- Grand Finale: The seventh installment of the series, Heaven, is currently the final one.
- Great Escape: The plot of Prison Brawl involves Hobo finding a way to escape the prison he was transported to upon his arrest at the end of the first game, while fighting fellow inmates and guards.
- Healing Checkpoint: Reaching a checkpoint in all games refills your health to full.
- Heavy Sleeper: Sleeping seems to be the only thing Hobo does besides fighting.
- The Hero Dies: Hell begins with Hobo dying from a lack of oxygen after destroying the spaceship's power core in the previous game, and thus goes to the afterlife, starting his way through it in Hell.
- Hobos: Given his name, Hobo is naturally one of these. Several other hobos appear as enemies in the first game.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In Hell, numerous people impaled through long spikes appear as environmental entities. They can be hit as much as you want, but that's about it.
- Logo Joke: In the opening of all games, Hobo is inserted in the usual Armor Games logo, getting impaled by the logo's swords and then crushed by the shield.
- Made of Iron: Hobo himself in comparison to most enemies, which is especially noticeable when it comes to weapons like the shotgun and explosives. Shotguns and explosives tend to be a One-Hit Kill for the normal human enemies, which is quite realistic, but Hobo will take as much damage from them as a simple punch.
- Marathon Level: Space Brawls is the longest game in the series, as it involves the player having to re-acquire all of the combos from the previous four games, which were drained from Hobo at the beginning of this one.
- Mirror Boss: In a non-boss variant, the Hobo clones in Space Brawls serve as this to Hobo, using the exact same moves and combos as him to fight (though early on they can use combos that you haven't unlocked yet).
- Mundane Afterlife: While the Hell seen in Hell is depicted as a typical place for eternal punishment, the Heaven seen in Heaven is pretty much the same as the living world, the only difference being that people can laze around because they don't have to do anything at all.
- Nose Nuggets:
- One of Hobo's idle animations has him pick his nose and swallow the resulting snot.
- Weaponized with the S-S-A combo introduced in the first game, which has Hobo use his snot against enemies.
- Number of the Beast: The sixth game takes place in Hell, and its main menu fittingly features two more 6s alongside the one in the title to form a "666".
- One-Man Army: Exaggerated with Hobo. Not only can he beat his way through people easily, but he can also take down vehicles (most of which are armored ones from the police and military) all by himself, even without using any actual weapons.
- Overly-Long Tongue: The A-S-D combo introduced in Wanted shows that Hobo has a very long tongue, which he uses in the combo to fight against enemies.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the first game, the stage just before the first checkpoint features a hot dog stand with a vendor inside it. Said vendor closes the window and presumably runs away once you begin fighting the enemies (one of whom is a customer at the stand).
- Sequel Escalation: Each game is progressively more complex than the previous one by adding more enemy types, weapons and combos. To wit:
- The first game's enemies consisted mostly of mundane civilians and police officers who are pretty easy to take down. The only weapons available were the throwable trash cans and bottles, which can only be thrown once, and there were 6 simple combos that only involved the use of the usual A and S keys to attack.
- While keeping the same enemies as before, Prison Brawl introduced chairs, which work the same as trash cans and bottles but can be thrown as many times as you want, and pistols with limited ammo. It also introduced 3 new combos, which are longer and more powerful but still use the same A and S keys.
- Wanted converts ground vehicles from bosses to regular enemies, introduces shotguns and SMGs as a step-up from pistols, and adds combos with the D key to the combo roster.
- Total War converts the previous helicopter boss to a regular enemy type and introduces grenades and bazookas as explosive weapons.
- Averted by Space Brawls, which doesn't include any new combos, and removes the vehicle enemies and throwable and explosive weapons. That said, it replaces the bullet-based guns with more powerful laser ones.
- Hell re-introduces the vehicle enemies with vehicle-equivalents, and adds Cephalothoraxs as a type of Elite Mook. It also replaces the other weapons with whips, and includes the first combos with the W key.
- Heaven includes angels as a new dose of elite mooks among the types, and re-introduces the throwable weapons. The most powerful combo that the game introduces is also the only one involving use of all four keys used for combos (S-A-D-W).
- Sequel Hook: At the end of Total War, Hobo goes to sleep and is then abducted by the spaceship wherein Space Brawls takes place.
- Shout-Out:
- In the first few games, some enemies wear T-shirts of Bart Simpson.
- There are also enemies who wear short-sleeved hoodies featuring a smiley face reminiscent to the one commonly featured alongside the Nirvana logo.
- Stopped Numbering Sequels: Inverted. The first sequel simply has the original Hobo title with the addition of a subtitle, Prison Brawl. The following games have their installment number in the title.
- Toilet Humour: Most of the combos involve this to progressively escalating degrees.
- Would Hit a Girl: Numerous women appear as enemies to fight against, and Hobo certainly doesn't show any hesitation to give them the same treatment as he does to men.
- Your Head A-Splode:
- Happens to Hobo in the game over screens of all games.
- This is also the defeat animation for Hobo's clones in Space Brawls.
