Floigan Bros.

Floigan Bros.
North American Dreamcast cover art
Developer(s)	Visual Concepts
Publisher(s)	Sega
Designer(s)	Andy Ashcraft Hirokazu Yasuhara
Composer(s)	Brian Luzietti
Platform(s)	Dreamcast
Release	NA: July 30, 2001 PAL: November 23, 2001
Genre(s)	Action-adventure

Floigan Bros. is a video game developed by Visual Concepts released on July 30, 2001 by Sega. It starred Jason Marsden and Frank Welker as the voices of the title characters.

Plot

The Floigan Brothers, Moigle and Hoigle, live by themselves in their very own junkyard. Moigle is the larger of the two brothers, and is not controlled by the player. Hoigle, on the other hand, is in direct control of the player. The two act as opposites; Moigle is larger and dimwitted, while Hoigle is smaller and far more intelligent than his brother. Moigle decides to surprise his brother with a machine, the only catch is that the parts he needs are scattered around their junkyard. Thus, Hoigle and Moigle begin to look for parts to the machine by solving various puzzles. However, hovering above the junkyard in a blimp, is Baron Malodorous. He wants the junkyard for his own uses, and sends out his cat mercenaries to weed out the Floigan Brothers. By defeating the Baron's cats, the brothers can find the parts to Moigle's machine.^[1]

Gameplay

The player is in direct control of Hoigle for the entirety of the game. When there is something to be interacted with, commands will appear within the Dreamcast's button layout. Hoigle can perform a variety of tasks to solve a puzzle or defeat one of the Baron's cats. However, the interaction with Hoigle's brother, Moigle, is the highlighted feature of the game. Moigle goes through different emotions depending what happens to him. For instance, Moigle can come in contact with a spider, and will not do anything until his fears are subsided. Alternatively, getting Moigle angry will cause him to become more aggressive, and, in turn, be used for throwing Hoigle to previously unreachable places.

Another feature of Moigle is that the player can play short minigames with him to earn points. When enough points are collected, Moigle can learn a new action. These new actions can be to over come his fear of spiders, play with a yo-yo, and many others.^[2]

Downloadable content (DLC) also existed but not all of the content was released due to the discontinuation of the Dreamcast and the games commercial failure. These were monthly DLC fils which included mini games, mail, outfits, etc. The actual content was hidden on the game disc, but was unlocked when the player downloaded the DLC file. On March 10 of 2017, Dreamcast-Live announced that the original developers released a modded version of the VMU save file to allow all of the content to be accessible for the first time ever. Dreamcast-Live has provided access to the DLC file.^[3]

Trivia

• The engine of the train on Hoigle and Moigle's train set is a 4-2-2 or an American type steam locomotive. Locomotives of this wheel arrangement of steam trains were used for the most common engine types during the 1800s and 1830s on American railroads up to the year of 1928. When the engine comes out of the shed at the Floigan depot, Moigle hops on its tender and rides around in a circle. The engine suddenly stops and runs out of control before Hoigle hops onto the engine, which spins out of control, and crashes through a window, and escapes.
• The game's logo also has the words 'episode 1' on it, implying that it was meant to be the first of a series. The existence of any plans for sequels is unknown.
• 12 pieces of on disc DLC have been unlocked by the original developers. These are accessible through Dreamcast Live and are playable with the original game on the Sega Dreamcast.

References