和田康裕:牧場物語系列差點腰斬 - NDS

It wasn't all that easy to apply the concept of living life in the
countryside to a game design document," said Yasuhiro Wada, creator of the
Harvest Moon franchise.
要把農村現實生活的概念運用遊戲設計上，本來就不簡單

Wada had moved to Tokyo after being brought up in the countryside. Though he
had no interest in returning to that environment, he finally understood its
advantages compared to the big city, and thus wanted to turn that experience
into a game. The problem was that he didn't know how.
在家鄉給人撫養長大的，和田搬到東京。雖然，他本來就沒興趣要回到那樣的環境，他
最後才了解和大城市比起來農村的優點，因為這樣，想把這樣的體驗做成一款遊戲，
問題是要如何著手呢?

"I needed to nail the player experience," said Wada, but he had a problem:
"How do you express the game system of living while working?"
"我必須把目光集中在玩家體驗上" 但問題來了，要如何一邊工作又一邊把生活的遊戲系
統給呈現出來呢?

The Missing Ingredient
遺漏的元素

He had come up with the idea of a game where the player raises cattle after
playing the popular-in-Japan Derby Stallion horse breeding and racing series,
but it wasn't coming together as a concept.
在玩過日本頗受歡迎的德比賽馬養育及競賽系列後，他想到的遊戲點子是，玩家養著頭牛
，但這些卻不能湊成一個概念

"When raising a cow, you communicate with your heart and give it a lot of
love," he said. "Just imagine how hard it was to represent these actions
within the game."
?"It can get pretty boring if everything is presented in a calm and composed
manner," he said. Though he thought that diligent work on the part of the
player "would feel like a reward, just like in real life," the game design
wasn't turning out to be interesting enough.

在養母牛時，你很用心及很多愛來跟它溝通，要在遊戲裡表現這些動作光想就知道有多困
難 "如果每件事都以冷靜，沉穩方式來表現，那也會變得太無聊" 雖然他認為，玩家在勤
奮工作後會覺得就像犒賞一樣，跟現實生活一樣" 這樣的遊戲設計結果也不會夠有趣。

"Too much work would cause stress to the player," he said. "It just didn't
work."
"太多工作會讓玩家有壓力，這樣行不通的"。

Though he'd arrived at the idea of also creating a village where the player
could interact with the townspeople, "the actions seemed repetitive and way
too simple," Wada said.
雖然他也有創造城鎮，玩家可以跟鎮上居民互動的點子，但動作又過於重覆也太簡單。

"This is when I realized the greatness of a battle or combat system," he
said. "By developing a combat system you can give a simple game a lot of
depth or pacing. Because the project had the concept of a non-combative game,
we did not have the depth and pacing from the beginning."
這時，我才了解到一場戰役或戰鬥系統的重要，"藉由開創戰鬥系統，就能讓一款簡單遊
戲變得更有深度與進度。因為這計畫裡也含有非戰鬥遊戲的概念，一開始並沒有深度跟進
度"。

The solution? "We came up with the idea of farming," he said. "This core
mechanic of farming sounded more promising than the human interaction and the
raising and breeding of cows."
解決方法是? "我們就想到了牧場啦"，牧場這個核心系統比起和人互動，撫養及養牛來得
更大有可為。

Of course, he says, "fast forward to today; there are a lot of social games"
that concentrate on farming, but at the time, the concept was untested.
當然，"現今進步很快，已有許許多多的社群遊戲把重點放在農場"。但在當時，
這概念並沒得以測試。

The farming element was inspired by SimCity and Zelda, he said.
他表示，農場這元素受模擬城市和薩爾達的啟發而來的。


Once he saw the prototype, he knew it would work. "Once you worked on the
land, you wanted to go back and see."
他一看到雛型就知道這個會成功。"一旦你在那土地付出心血，就會想回去看看"。

"We saw the first sprout appeared... It may sound simple right now, but I
will never forget the moment I saw that on screen. It was pretty amazing, and
I knew we could do this. I said to our team, 'Let's continue to make this
game.'"
我們看到第一顆種子冒出頭了，現在可能看似簡單，但在銀幕上看到的那刻我絕忘不了。
這真的神奇，我知道我們辦得到，我對著團隊說，大伙繼續努力耕耘這款遊戲吧。

Development progressed smoothly for six months until the first playable ROM,
but when the three game elements -- character interaction, farming the
fields, and raising cattle -- came together, the game did not work well.
6個月的開發進展順利直到第一版試玩版出現，但遊戲並沒有表現良好，遊戲裡，
角色互動、耕田、養牛三元素沒有湊在一塊。

"The pieces worked individually on their own, but not as a whole," said Wada.
"The frame rate completely dropped."
"每一個元素都各自獨立運作，但也不算是一個整體，而且偵率完全掉了"。

This presented a problem, he said, because "there are a lot of objects in
this game and it's up to the player to place these objects," so the
developers couldn't control them. "We could reduce the number of objects..
But we also lose the fun factor in the game."
問題來了，因為遊戲裡有很多物體，玩家可隨意放置這些物體" 所以開發者不能控制這些
物體。"只能減少物體的量，但這樣也會讓遊戲失了樂趣。

"From that point on, it was a process of trial and error to see what it was
possible to display on screen," he said.
"就某種程度上，這只是試玩，出錯的過程，來檢視展示在銀幕的可能"。

The Nightmare of Harvest Moon
牧場物語之夢魘

The team grew to 10 people from this point, and another six months of
development progressed. But then, he said, "A nightmare that none of you,
including myself, would ever want to face" occurred: "The developer went
under."
這個時候開發團隊來到10人，開發又過了6個月的進度。當時，一個夢魘，不僅是你，
就連我，都不想碰到的事情發生了 "開發公司倒了"

"Despite being small, the developer working on Harvest Moon had several
projects going on simultaneously for the PlayStation and Saturn platforms,"
he said. "They took on more than what they could handle and eventually shut
down."
儘管公司很小，開發者把牧場物語同時放到PlayStation和Saturn平台進行多項企
畫 "他們所做的嘗試以超過能力所及，最終還是關閉了"。

"The president went missing -- literally. Teams were scattered. The only
thing remaining was unfinished game data and assets," said Wada.
總裁搞失蹤--字面上來說。整個團隊解體，唯一還留著只剩未完成的遊戲資料和資產"。

"I was in no position to comment on their operations, but in hindsight I wish
I did, even if it means I had to cross a line."
"我沒有立場去對整個運作發表評論"，但事後我希望我當時有開口，僅管意謂著我必須越
權"

"I was very heartbroken," said Wada. The game had already used up most of its
budget, but it was far from complete.
"我整個心碎了" 這款作品把大部份的預算用光了，但要說完成還差得遠呢

"The only thing I wanted was for people to experience this new type of game,"
he said. "There was no way to complete the game within the remaining budget,
and I was ready to call it quits."
"我想要的就是讓玩家體驗這款新形態的遊戲阿" "靠著那僅存的預算根本完成不了這款遊
戲，我已準備好對這款作品喊"停"了。

He was stopped, however, by the main programmer, Tomomi Yamatate, and the
scenario writer Setsuko Miyakoshi. "The two said, 'Let's do it, let's finish
the game'," he said. "I actually couldn't believe it, and was kind of ashamed
to think I was the one who was ready to give up."
結果，主程式設計師和遊戲編劇叫和田住手。這兩個人說 "我們來做吧，一起完成
這款遊戲 "我真不敢相信，還感到有點羞愧，想到我是那個準備要放棄的那個人"

"Back in the day, a single individual could finish the game, and here I had
two associates," he said. Miyakoshi took over the graphics and Yamatate
handled the programming. Wada worked on the dialogue and design.
"過去，一個人就能完成一款遊戲。現在我有兩位同事" Miyakoshi接下了圖像這部份，
Yamatate則處理程式這部份。和田則進行遊戲對話和設計。

He got six more months from his publisher. "We went to the developer, and
dragged the equipment from the studio, and made room in a meeting room --
and, of course, made room for our sleeping bags."
要提交給發行商距離還有6個多月。 "我們跑去求助開發商，從工作室拿了設備，在會議
室騰出個空間。當然，也給我們的睡袋騰個空間"。

Yamatate ended up throwing out most of the code that had already been
completed; Miyakoshi created missing assets and wrote the game script. "I
assisted with dialogue, scripting, and repeatedly played the work in progress
game to provide feedback," said Wada.
原先已經完成的，但最終許多編碼都放棄掉了。Miyakoshi把遺失的資產給找了回來
又編寫遊戲腳本 "我則在進行對話、劇本，還有為了提供回應不斷地測試遊戲進度"。

"We threw away a lot of stuff. We simply had no time and couldn't dwell on
the little things."
"我們丟掉很多東西，只因為我們沒時間，也不能專注在小事情上"

This had an unexpected upside, however. "As a result, we were able to conform
the core pillars of the game." This resulted, Wada said, in a "more enjoyable
experience."
然而，卻有出人意料的一面" 結果，反而促成了遊戲的核心" 這樣的結果會是更有樂趣的
體驗"

"Six months later, what I thought was never going to happen, happened. We had
completed the game," he said.
"6個月後，我想都沒想過會發生的事，發生了。這款遊戲完成了"

"I never felt happier or more thankful in my life."
"這一生我更快樂更心存感激"。

The game went on to be a minor hit in Japan, selling over 100,000 copies --
and was followed up by a Game Boy version which, thanks to Pokemon's
popularity, sold over 300,000, launching the new franchise.
這款遊戲在日本影響力還算不小，銷售突破10萬本--接著發售的GBA版本，多虧神奇寶貝
的人氣，銷售破30萬，打響成為全新系列作。

素人翻譯，有錯請指正 謝謝^^

來源:

http://www.wretch.cc/blog/kb240824088
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/165143/GDC_2012_How_Harvest_Moon_almost_
didnt_happen.php

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