Humble Bundle Closure Game: controls problem
It may be that some device (your keyboard for instance) is being detected as a joystick/gamepad, and this ruins the input. If you don't actually have/use any gamepads/joysticks, try removing the joystick support module:
sudo rmmod joydev
I had this problem myself, and found this quick fix here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1996702. I'm actually using this Microsoft Wired 600 keyboard mentioned in the forum, so it would be interesting to know if you're using the same keyboard.