Game Freak’s Origins And Its Pre-Pokémon Games
原始资料
Pokémon Sun and Moon director Shigeru Ohmori (left) and Game Freak co-founder Junichi Masuda reflect on the studio’s history.（《宝可梦 太阳／月亮》总监大森滋（左）与 GAME FREAK 联合创始人增田顺一（右）在工作室回顾草创历史。）
图像作为阅读入口保留；正文仍以可检索、可对照的文字档案为主。
逐段译读
原文
We recently had the opportunity to visit the offices of Game Freak, the creators of Pokémon, to discuss the series, its impact, and its future. The studio is more than Pokémon, however, and we talked to them about its beginnings and its games that don’t explore the world of Pocket Monsters.
译文
我们最近有幸拜访了《宝可梦》系列开发商GAME FREAK的办公室，就这一系列作品、其影响力及其未来进行了探讨。然而，这家工作室的成就远不止于《宝可梦》，我们还与他们聊了聊公司的起步历程，以及那些不涉及宝可梦世界的游戏作品。
Pokémon Sun and Moon director Shigeru Ohmori (left) and Game Freak co-founder Junichi Masuda reflect on the studio’s history.（《宝可梦 太阳／月亮》总监大森滋（左）与 GAME FREAK 联合创始人增田顺一（右）在工作室回顾草创历史。）
原文
Game Freak began as a magazine in Japan, or as Pokémon producer and composer and Game Freak co-founder Junichi Masuda refers to it, a mini comic. Satoshi Tajiri, who is credited as Pokémon’s creator, would visit arcades, talk to their owners and get tips for the games that would be included in the magazine, but making video games was always its goal. As a small group of video game fans, they didn’t think they could make an arcade game, but with the release of the Famicom (the Nintendo Entertainment System in America) Game Freak thought it might finally be able to make something.
译文
Game Freak 起初是日本的一本杂志，或者用宝可梦制作人、作曲家兼 Game Freak 联合创始人增田顺一的话来说，是一本迷你漫画。被誉为宝可梦创始人的田尻智，会去逛街机厅，与店主交流，获取游戏技巧，这些内容会被收录进杂志中，但制作电子游戏始终是他们的目标。作为一个由电子游戏爱好者组成的小团体，他们原本认为自己无法制作街机游戏，但随着 FC红白机（在美国称为 NES）的发布，Game Freak 觉得他们或许终于能够制作出一些东西了。
Mendel Palace (released as Quinty in Japan) was Game Freak’s debut video game.（《Quinty》（在北美发售时名为《Mendel Palace》）是 GAME FREAK 开发的首款商业电子游戏。）
原文
“When we first decided we wanted to make a game for the Famicom, that’s when we started development on Quinty [Mendel Palace in America], and we were really true indies at the time,” Masuda says, “We were just friends doing a hobby as we built this game.”
译文
增田顺一回忆道：“当我们最初决定要为FC红白机开发一款游戏时，那正是我们启动《Quinty》（美版名《孟德尔宫殿》）项目的时候，当时我们确实是真正的独立开发者。我们只是一群朋友，出于爱好聚在一起，就这样制作了这款游戏。”
原文
Quinty is a puzzle game where the player flips tiles on a grid in order to avoid or dispose of enemies on a mission to save their girlfriend. The game was published by Namco in Japan.
译文
《Quinty》是一款益智游戏，玩家在网格上翻转方块以躲避或消灭敌人，目标是拯救女友。该游戏由南梦宫在日本发行。
原文
“When we first started making the game we didn’t really have any official development equipment, so we just sort of had to hack the NES and figure out how it worked so we could develop on it ourselves without the official sort of development tools,” Masuda says.
译文
增田顺一表示：“最初开始制作这款游戏时，我们并没有正式的开发设备，所以只能自行破解FC红白机，摸索其运作原理，以便在没有官方开发工具的情况下自行开发。”
原文
Nintendo wasn’t interested in the game because Game Freak wasn’t a formal development company at the time, so Tajiri shopped the game around.
译文
当时任天堂对这款游戏并不感兴趣，因为GAME FREAK还不是一家正式的开发公司，所以田尻智便带着游戏四处寻找发行商。
原文
“When talking with Namco they said, ‘No, we can’t have a contract with an individual. We need you guys to incorporate.’ So we made the decision to form Game Freak the company,” Masuda says.
译文
增田顺一回忆道：“与南梦宫洽谈时，他们说：‘不行，我们不能与个人签约。你们需要成立公司。’于是我们决定组建GAME FREAK这家公司。”
原文
After Quinty, Game Freak worked with Sony to create Smart Ball for Super Nintendo, a game where you play as a platforming jelly bean named Jerry.
译文
在《Quinty》之后，GAME FREAK 与索尼合作，为超级任天堂打造了《Jerry Boy》（美版名《Smart Ball》），这是一款玩家扮演名为 Jerry 的果冻豆进行平台跳跃的游戏。
Smart Ball (Jerry Boy in Japan) was developed for Sony on the Super Famicom.（《Jerry Boy》（美版名为《Smart Ball》）是为索尼开发的 SFC 动作平台游戏。）
原文
Tajiri did, however, open the door with Nintendo in those early days, even if it didn’t publish Game Freak’s first two games, which lead to Yoshi. Yoshi is a falling block puzzle game where players have to match pictures of familiar Mario enemies.
译文
然而，田尻智确实在早期为任天堂打开了大门，尽管任天堂并未发行Game Freak最初的两款游戏，这最终促成了《耀西的蛋》的诞生。《耀西的蛋》是一款下落式方块益智游戏，玩家需要匹配熟悉的马力欧敌人图片。
原文
“That game is when we first started working with them,” Masuda says. “We got the offer to create it, we developed it, and it was really successful, so we kind of formed that relationship and we got along really well and kept the development units. We borrowed them for about six years.”
译文
“那款游戏是我们首次与他们合作，”增田顺一说道，“我们接到了制作它的邀请，开发完成后大获成功，因此我们建立了良好的关系，相处融洽，并保留了开发团队。我们借用他们大约六年时间。”
原文
It was during this time that Tajiri and Game Freak developed a relationship with Miyamoto and the late Gunpei Yokoi, the creator of the d-pad and the Kid Icarus and Metroid franchises.
译文
正是在这一时期，田尻智与GAME FREAK与宫本茂及已故的横井军平建立了合作关系，后者是十字键以及《光神话》和《银河战士》系列的创造者。
Yoshi established Game Freak’s direct working relationship with Nintendo.（《耀西的蛋》（Yoshi）建立了 GAME FREAK 与任天堂之间的直接合作纽带。）
原文
After Yoshi, Game Freak released a Sega Genesis game based on a popular manga and anime, Magical Taluluto, that never made its way to America. It wasn’t Game Freak’s last non-Nintendo game as later, even after it found success with Pokémon, games like Pulseman, Tembo the Badass Elephant, and most recently Giga Wrecker, released on other consoles and platforms.
译文
在《耀西的蛋》之后，GAME FREAK 为世嘉 Mega Drive 开发了一款基于人气漫画和动画的游戏《神通小精灵》（Magical Taluluto），该游戏从未在北美发售。这并非 GAME FREAK 最后一次为非任天堂平台开发游戏，因为后来，即使凭借《宝可梦》取得了成功，他们仍在其他主机和平台上推出了《脉冲超人》（Pulseman）、《混混大象》（Tembo the Badass Elephant）以及最近的《千兆破坏者》（Giga Wrecker）等作品。
原文
“We’d have the game concept first and then we’d kind of decide which platform it would be best suited for so we released games on Sega Megadrive, Sega Genesis, and the PC Engine and platforms like that,” Masuda says.
译文
增田顺一表示：“我们通常会先确定游戏概念，然后再决定哪个平台最适合它，因此我们曾在世嘉 Mega Drive、Genesis 以及 PC Engine 等平台上发布过游戏。”
原文
In 1993 Game Freak released another game that never made it to America, but with two characters Americans are very familiar with. Mario and Wario is one of the few SNES games that used the mouse peripheral outside of Mario Paint, but it didn’t start out that way.
译文
1993年，GAME FREAK 又推出了一款从未登陆美国市场的游戏，但其中包含两个美国玩家非常熟悉的角色。《马力欧与瓦力欧》是少数几款在《马力欧绘图》之外使用 SFC 专用鼠标外设的超级任天堂游戏，但这款游戏最初并非如此设计。
原文
“Originally the idea was to use the Super Nintendo Super Scope. I was a programmer on this game and at the time we were making it for the Super Scope and it was pretty difficult to work with,” Masuda says. “When it was first starting out you would shoot the Super Scope and launch nets to catch monsters but back then most people’s TVs were pretty small and the Super Scope? We couldn’t get it to quite determine the top and the bottom of the TV so there were a lot of situations where it just wouldn’t recognize the net getting shot out.”
译文
增田顺一表示：“最初的想法是使用超级任天堂的超级瞄准镜。我当时是这个游戏的程序员，那时我们正在为超级瞄准镜开发这款游戏，但操作起来相当困难。刚开始时，你通过瞄准镜射击并发射网来捕捉怪物，但那时大多数人的电视屏幕都很小，而超级瞄准镜？我们无法准确判断电视的上下边界，所以很多时候它都无法识别网被射出的情况。”
原文
It was that hurdle that lead to the game using the SNES mouse.
译文
正是这一难关，促使该游戏采用了SFC专用鼠标。
Junichi Masuda and Shigeru Ohmori discuss early game development hurdles.（增田顺一与大森滋交流早期游戏研发的技术攻坚过程。）
原文
In 1996, Game Freak finally released Pokémon Red and Green in Japan — a game that the studio had quietly been working on for six years.
译文
1996年，GAME FREAK终于在日本推出了《宝可梦 红／绿》——这款游戏是工作室默默耕耘了六年的成果。
原文
“With Pokémon, we were just kind of making it ourselves at first and we did present the game concept to Nintendo and they said, ‘Oh okay, good luck. As long as you guys have money, keep working on it’,” Masuda says.
译文
“最初制作《宝可梦》时，我们基本是靠自己摸索，后来把游戏概念提交给任天堂，他们回应说：‘哦，好吧，祝你们好运。只要你们资金充足，就继续做下去吧。’”增田顺一回忆道。
原文
Nintendo would check in and offer advice and some suggestions, like releasing the game on multiple cartridges, an idea Masuda says was entirely Shigeru Miyamoto’s, but no contracts were written up during that development time.
译文
任天堂会不时地前来视察并提供建议和意见，比如将游戏分多个卡带发行，增田顺一表示这个想法完全出自宫本茂之手，但在那段开发期间，双方并未签订任何合同。
原文
“Kind of the feeling at the time wasn’t that we got a deal with them and kept working on it over six years or anything like that. We were just us developing it on our own.”
译文
当时的感觉并不是我们跟他们达成了协议，然后花了六年多时间持续开发。我们只是自己独立开发这款游戏。
原文
Pokémon was a massive success and continues to be the developer’s driving force, but it still enjoys making games outside the franchise.
译文
《宝可梦》取得了巨大成功，并持续成为该开发商的驱动力，但它依然乐于制作该系列之外的游戏。
原文
“Of course, those side projects are always really important for the developer to try different things and we all like to explore new opportunities for Game Freak as a company, not being just stuck in one thing,” Masuda says, “But the reality of the games industry is with other projects, just to get people to notice you, there are so many games out there these days that we definitely feel that tough situation is the reality of the video game market.”
译文
增田顺一表示：“当然，这些副项目对于开发者尝试不同事物总是非常重要的，我们也都喜欢为GAME FREAK探索新的机会，不希望公司仅仅局限于单一领域。但游戏行业的现实是，如今市面上的游戏数量繁多，仅靠其他项目来吸引人们的注意已十分困难，我们深切感受到这种严峻形势正是当下游戏市场的真实写照。”
原文
For more on the history of Pokémon, check out Game Informer’s coverage covering the franchise’s history, as well as our deep-dive interviews with Game Freak.
译文
欲了解更多宝可梦的历史，请查阅Game Informer对该系列历史的报道，以及我们对GAME FREAK的深度专访。
Archive record 档案信息
- Date
- 2017.08.09
- Source
- Game Freak’s Origins And Its Pre-Pokémon Games
- People
- Game Informer, 增田顺一
- Game / Work
- 未标注
- Page
- 未标注
- Language
- en
- Status
- published