George Fan is the mastermind behind PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies, a game that's often been described as "crazy." (Crazy good, crazy addictive... or just plain crazy. It's all accurate.) We spoke to George about Plants vs. Zombies, his previous PopCap project Insaniquarium, and what kind of hidden object game he would make if he could.

George Fan是PopCap旗下热门游戏《植物大战僵尸》的主策划, 这款游戏经常被人评价为“疯狂” (疯狂的好玩, 疯狂的上瘾,或者就是简单的疯狂。) 今天我们一起和 George 来聊一聊《植物大战僵尸》、他之前为 PopCap 策划的作品《疯狂水族馆》以及如果他能做隐藏对象的游戏他会做什么。

George Fan和僵尸,左边的是George (众:看得出来!)

Zombies are unofficially considered “taboo” in casual games (along with ninjas and robots!), but Plants vs. Zombies has gotten a great response from both the hardcore and the casual crowd. What’s your secret?
提问:一般都认为僵尸是休闲类游戏的禁忌(与此相同的还有忍着和机器人),但是植物大战僵尸却在高级玩家和休闲玩家那里都得到了非常好的反响,你有什么秘诀吗?

Hmm... I don't really have a secret... I think it's a just result of personal taste. I'm not into games that are too gritty or take themselves too seriously, nor am I into themes that are too pandering or sickeningly sweet. So when I set out to create Plants vs. Zombies, I made sure it struck the right balance for me thematically. Yes, you have these cutesy plants, but the existence of zombies prevents it from being to sugary. Yes, it's a PopCap game with zombies, but they're goofy, cartoony zombies so it's all good.

嗯…… 其实真没啥秘诀……我觉得就是个人品味的体现吧。我不喜欢太难玩太把自己当回事儿的游戏,也不喜欢太迎合太脑残的主题。所以我设计植物大战僵尸的时候就确保主题方面对我来说比较平衡。你是有超可爱的植物,不过僵尸的存在就让游戏的“含糖量”不会太高;它也的确是有僵尸的 PopCap 游戏,不过它们是呆呆傻傻又卡通的僵尸,所以整体来说还不错。

More than that, however, I think it's the gameplay that really strikes a balance between the casual and the hardcore. I'm big on strategy in games, so I made sure to include a heaping spoonful of it in this one. So there you have the hardcore side of the game. On the other hand, I despise games that make you go through walls of tutorial text to teach complex game mechanics, so I tried to keep it extra simple in the beginning of the game. And that's the casual side for ya.

另外,我觉得真正能在高级玩家和休闲玩家之间找到平衡的还是游戏方式了。我超喜欢策略游戏,所以我在这款游戏里放了大量的策略因素,这样你可以在游戏里找到高级玩家热衷的因素。另一方面,我不喜欢游戏的说明太复杂,所以我尽力让游戏入门变得极其简单,这样对于休闲玩家来说就也能接受了。

After designing Insaniquarium and working on Diablo 3 with Blizzard, what made you decide that your next project would be a tower defense game?
你设计完《疯狂水族馆》,又帮暴雪做了《暗黑破坏神3》之后,是什么让你下定决心要做这样一种塔防游戏呢?

I was messing around with some new game ideas after completing Insaniquarium, one of which was to make a more defense oriented version of Insaniquarium. I was also playing Tower Defense mods in Warcraft III at the time. I looked at the towers in Warcraft III and thought that plants would make some pretty good towers, being stationary and something I could inject a lot of personality into.

我在做完疯狂水族馆之后脑子里装满了各种新游戏的想法,其中一种就是做一款防御更多的水族馆游戏。我当时还在玩魔兽3的塔防地图。我看着魔兽3里面的塔,就在想,用植物来代替固定在一个地方的塔应该更好看一点,我还在里面加了一些个人的想法。

And that's how Plants vs. Zombies became a tower defense game. I wanted to make sure to bring something new to the genre, and that was the impetus for re-envisioning how tower defense games could play. Traditional tower defense concepts like 'mazing' and 'juggling' always felt awkward to me because it would force you to play against the 'pathing algorithm' of the enemies. It was a little too esoteric for my tastes, so I worked to pare the gameplay down to the 5 lane configuration you see today.

这样,植物大战僵尸就变成了一款塔防游戏。我想给这种类型的游戏加点新东西,这也能推动塔防游戏玩法的发展。老式的塔防有一些概念,像“迷惑”和“欺骗”总会让我感觉很怪,你总要应对敌人的路线法则。对我来说,这个东东有点过于神秘了,所以我直接就把僵尸设定成了你今天看到的五条通道的样子。

Plants vs. Zombies is your second project with PopCap Games; prior to that you also worked with them on Insaniquarium. Was the process significantly different the second time around? If so, how?
植物大战僵尸是你在 PopCap 做的第二款游戏,你之前还跟他们合作做过疯狂水族馆,在设计过程中有什么不同吗?如果有,是怎么样的不同呢?

I was freelance when working on Insaniquarium and didn't have the resources to hire a full-time team. As a result I had to wear many hats, as I did a majority of the programming and game design while writing some of the music as well as doing the concept art. During Plants vs. Zombies, I was a full-time employee of PopCap, so they helped me put a team together for the game, which really let me focus a lot more on just the game design due to having a team of programmer (Tod Semple), artist (Rich Werner), and musician (Laura Shigihara) working with me from pretty much the get go.

做水族馆的时候我还是个自由职业者,也没啥资源组建全职工作的团队。结果就我一手包办了。我写了大部分的程序、做了游戏的设计,给游戏配设计图的时候还得找背景音乐。等到做植物大战僵尸的时候我就是 PopCap 的全职雇员了,他们帮我组建了一个团队,因为有了专门的程序员、美工和音乐人,我就可以更专注做游戏策划了。

疯狂水族馆

How much input did PopCap have on the game design process? Were there any game design choices that came as a direct result of PopCap’s suggestions?
PopCap 在游戏设计的投入有多少呢? 有没有什么设计创意是直接来自 PopCap 的建议的呢?

PopCap has this great internal forum where one can post in-progress versions of games and get a ton of good feedback from the rest of the company. This was of immeasurable help since there are a lot of smart people within PopCap.

PopCap 有一个内部论坛,你可以在上面发布一款游戏正在开发中的版本,然后就可以从公司其他人那里得到超级多的反馈,对游戏开发的帮助很大,因为 PopCap 有很多聪明的家伙。

One of the critical points in the design process was when it was pointed out that the sun collection mechanic was hard to learn for players who had never played Real-Time Strategy games. These players would plant peashooters but not enough sunflowers, and often lose because of that. So we took the sunflower's price down from 100 to 50 (the cheaper price would encourage players to buy it over the peashooter). That one change required a rebalancing of the entire game, but it was well worth it.

在游戏的设计方面得到的一个批评是太阳能量的收集,对于从来没玩过实施策略游戏的玩家来说很难理解它的重要性。他们会放很多的射击豌豆,最后因为没有足够的向日葵死掉了。所以我们把向日葵的价格从100降到了50。(价格便宜了玩家就会愿意买),这一个改变就需要重新调整整个游戏的平衡,不过这是值得的。

What were some of the games that influenced Plants vs. Zombies?
影响了植物大战僵尸的游戏有哪些呢?

The 3 biggest game influences were:

影响最大的三款游戏是:

Warcraft III Tower Defense - inspired the whole idea stationary turrets gunning down hordes of enemies.

魔兽3塔防地图—— 这是游戏用固定的东西去攻击移动的敌人这个创意的来源。

Insaniquarium - the resource system is lifted straight from this game. Also, the new plants are drip-fed to you at the same pace as Insaniquarium's pets, and you choose plants in a similar fashion to how you choose your pets at the beginning of each level of Insaniquarium.

疯狂水族馆—— 资源系统是直接从这款游戏中吸收过来的。新的植物就像水族馆里的小东西一样,以同样的速度生长,选择植物的方式和水族馆里每一关开头选择水族们的方式也是类似的。

Tapper - the idea of multi-tasking five different lanes of your lawn is similar to the gameplay of this old arcade game.

酒吧招待——这是五条通道同时运行的灵感来源。

五通道的酒吧招待游戏

The team must have had a blast coming up with all the characters. What zombies and plant types are you most proud of?
整个团队对所有的角色都会有很多想法,最让你感到骄傲的僵尸和植物分别是什么呢?

I like that the torchwood (the fiery tree-stump that ignites peas) makes you think about how your plants interact with each other. The cob cannon took a long time to design due to us coming up with so many variations in the search for the ultimate version. I think we landed somewhere good with that, though.

我最喜欢的是火炬木会让你思考如何让你的植物产生互动。玉米加农炮我们花了很多时间来设计,因为我们在寻找终极版本之前做了非常多的尝试。我想我们做出了正确的选择。

And the tall-nut just has so much character, standing there with his determined gaze, just shedding a single tear when hurt. My girlfriend can't bear to see that, so she immediately protects one with a pumpkin always. Keeping those pumpkins around the tall-nuts seems more important to her than passing the level sometimes.

还有大坚果的性格很鲜明,它总是坚定的站在那里,受到了伤害也只会洒一滴眼泪。我女朋友特别受不了这个,她总是用个南瓜把坚果保护起来。对她来说,有时候用南瓜把坚果包围起来比游戏通关更重要。

As for zombies, the pole-vaulting zombie is awesome for the sheer hilarity that takes place when I'm watching someone play for the first time. They always wonder "What is that guy going to do with his stick?" as they place a wall-nut down in hopes of blocking him, only to have the wall-nut promptly vaulted over.

就僵尸来说,撑杆跳的僵尸很棒,我看别人第一次玩游戏的时候,他们总是会想“这家伙拿根棍子干嘛?”然后他们会把一个坚果墙希望能阻挡住他,最后却发现被跳过去了。

Can you give us any hints about your upcoming projects (besides your brilliant hidden object game)?
就你将要推出的游戏,能给我们透露点消息么?

Nothing I can specifically talk about, but I strongly value innovation in games, so I'm always looking to bring something new to the table with each game I make. The next game you'll see from me will likely be a whole new setting & new concept.

没有什么特别值得提的,不过我特别看重创新,所以我总是会把新的想法加入我制作的每一款游戏中。我做的下一个游戏可能会让你们看到一种全新的设定和概念。

Any last words for your fans?
最后对粉丝们说句话吧

Thank you so much. Your love for games is what drives me to want to keep making 'em.

非常感谢大家,你们对游戏的热爱是驱使我不断制作游戏的动力。

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