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[Pemanent]

http://www.rytgames.com/Poacher/Desktop.html
Does this idea work as an arcade game?
is the big question I'm trying to answer.

Controls.
Xbox controller should work, left stick to move around and hold right bumper to start capturing a dude.
or
Left mouse button to move around and right mouse button to start capturing a dude.

Also when you're capturing a guy you have to pull away from him otherwise you'll trip and be stunned.

Some background.
You walk around and suck the power out of robots, because you want to capture them instead of totally destroying them.

I'm imagining taking this in an arcade direction. Something like spelunky / hotline miami / luigis mansion.
Each level would be procedural, and you have to clear all baddies before going to the next level. Then see how many levels you can complete before dying.
I have thoughts about baddies dropping supplies which you can use to craft, just to encourage exploration and give the player more reason to capture all the dudes.

I'm looking for an idea to put into a arcade cabinet, to use for demoing at events and such.
So really I just want to know if you think this game would work well in an arcade cabinet being played by nongamers at local game events.

[harkme]

I preferred moving with the arrow keys, but I couldn't find any keys to capture and for whatever reason, the mouse would stop working for a bit while I used keyboard keys. Are the robots meant to move? They didn't move until I was capturing them and then they were running away. It'd be cool if they were running away all the time and then when you try to capture them, it works like a magnet on them. How about you have a big magnet that attracts not only enemies, but bullets as well? Then you'd have to be careful with using the magnet so that you don't attract bullets and other damaging objects while trying to capture robots. I feel like touching a robot shouldn't damage you, but instead lead to instant capture. Of course, this only works if the robots actively run away.

[Pemanent]

Yeah they kinda pull you when they're running, which is part of what makes the mechanic interesting I think. They might pull you somewhere you don't want to go.
The purple robots will chase you, but the grey ones don't. I do want more interesting behavior for them but haven't done that yet.

I could definitely do something like that magnet, but I think that'd be a totally different mechanic, and I'm not convinced this pulling/sucking mechanic should be abandoned yet.

I think having the robot damage you adds a lot. You have to avoid them while at the same time getting close enough to capture them. Encouraging the player to just blindly chase down everything in the level I don't think is as interesting.