I downloaded the flare base game of the ubuntu app store, for some reason everyonce in a while the controls go all buggy and my chactor gets ants in his pants and decides that hes going to run around on his own
That can happen on some laptops with Joysticks enabled. SDL interprets a laptop's tilt sensors as a joystick.
Ubuntu is still using an old version (0.15) so you'll have to disable joysticks in your ~/.config/flare/settings.txt file. In a newer version you can disable joysticks using the Configuration menu.