Game Informer 独家特写：Game Freak 是如何设计宝可梦的？——杉森建与增田顺一深度复盘生物设计法则、评审委员会机制与 3D 演进
2017年《Game Informer》深入探访 Game Freak 东京总部，艺术总监杉森建与制作人增田顺一首次完整解密宝可梦的诞生管线：从全员提案制、由核心主创组成的‘设计评审委员会’，到杉森建独创的‘反差美学法则’（在帅气的怪物上加点滑稽，在可爱的精灵上加点惊悚），以及从 2D 点阵过渡到 3D 全模型时代对宝可梦眼部表情与动态剪影的严苛要求。
宝可梦 太阳·月亮
原始资料
Game Freak 内部开发企划档案与设计草案
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
Game Freak 内部开发企划档案与设计草案
原文
Between all the different Pokémon games that have released over the last 20 years, taking into account Mega Evolutions and new wrinkles like the Alola forms in Sun and Moon, there are 802 Pokémon. The creatures vary in design to an incredible degree, covering strange influences like keys and piles of garbage to less surprising designs based on cute animals like cats and koalas. While visiting Japan to explore Game Freak’s development studio, we spoke with Pokémon director, producer, and composer Junichi Masuda about what the process of designing a Pokémon looks like, whether they have ever encountered an internal pitch that was immediately turned down, and what has happened to their eyes over the years.
译文
在过去20年间发售的所有宝可梦游戏中，考虑到超级进化以及《太阳／月亮》中阿罗拉形态等新要素，宝可梦的总数已达802只。这些生物的设计差异之大令人惊叹，既有基于钥匙和垃圾堆等奇特灵感的设计，也有基于猫和考拉等可爱动物的较为常见的设计。在赴日探访Game Freak开发工作室期间，我们与宝可梦总监、制作人兼作曲家增田顺一进行了交谈，聊到了宝可梦的设计流程是怎样的、他们是否曾遇到过被立即否决的内部提案，以及这些年来宝可梦的眼睛发生了怎样的变化。
原文
Pitches for new creatures come from every corner of the studio. “The graphic designers are obviously going to be the ones finalizing the look, but it’s not just the graphic designers who come up with ideas or draw the Pokémon,” Masuda says. Sometimes a battle designer might want to feature a specific move in the game, which requires a specific creature. A story writer might want to execute a narrative beat that requires a new monster. Alternatively, it might be as simple as a graphic designer wanting to explore an animal that it has not yet inspired a Pokémon yet. “These ideas come from a lot of different places, the gameplay, the visuals, the story, and in the end those ideas just get centralized and designed,” Masuda says.
译文
新生物的设计提案来自工作室的各个角落。“平面设计师显然会是最终确定外观的人，但提出创意或绘制宝可梦的并不只有平面设计师，”增田说道。有时战斗设计师可能希望在游戏中呈现某个特定招式，而这需要一只特定的生物。剧情编剧可能想要实现一个叙事节点，而这需要一只新的怪物。又或者，可能只是某位平面设计师想要探索一种尚未被用作宝可梦灵感的动物那么简单。“这些创意来自许多不同的地方——玩法、视觉、故事，最终这些创意会被集中起来并进行设计，”增田说道。
Game Freak 会议室陈列架上摆放的全世代宝可梦官方模型
原文
There are few, if any, hard and fast rules about what a Pokémon can and cannot be. “One thing we always really pay attention to is treating them like living creatures so you have to try and imagine where it would live in the environment and why it looks the way it does, what would it eat? For example,” Masuda says. “When designing Pokémon, and not just from a graphic design perspective, there must be a reason for why it looks the way it does and you have to think about why it might live in the Pokémon world.”
译文
关于宝可梦能是什么、不能是什么，即便有，也很少有硬性规定。“我们始终真正关注的一点是，把它们当作活生生的生物来对待，所以你必须试着想象它会在环境中住在哪里、为什么它长成这个样子、它会吃什么？诸如此类，”增田说道。“设计宝可梦时，不仅仅是从平面设计的角度出发，它长成这个样子必须有原因，你必须思考它为什么会生活在宝可梦世界中。”
增田顺一在白板上随手画出的‘三头猫’草图，用以阐释‘进化不能只靠简单堆砌器官’的逻辑
原文
Pokémon designs rarely get cancelled, so to speak. If a new Pokémon weren’t going to fit in the game or world, Game Freak doesn’t let them get far past the conceptual stages. “Once you’re in the middle of creating it and someone were to say, ‘No!, that’s not a Pokémon,’ and the design process gets killed? That doesn’t really happen that much,” Masuda says. “Usually, instead, maybe the person who is directing the game might say it won’t work in its current form, but maybe if you did this and adding ideas onto it might make it work better.” For this reason, ideas for new Pokémon rarely get thrown away.
译文
可以说，宝可梦的设计很少会被取消。如果一只新宝可梦不适合游戏或世界观，Game Freak不会让它走得太远，在概念阶段就会止步。“当你正在创作过程中，有人突然说‘不行！那不是宝可梦’，然后设计流程就被叫停？这种情况其实并不太多见，”增田说道。“通常相反的情况是，也许是游戏总监会说它目前的形式行不通，但如果你这样做、再加上一些想法，可能会让它更好地成立。”正因如此，新宝可梦的创意很少会被丢弃。
原文
Game Freak has been working on Pokémon for just over 20 years, so it knows what makes a good Pokémon at this point, but evolution tracks can still be tricky. “One thing that happens a lot – well, not a lot – but happens sometimes, is that you start out with a cat, and when it evolves one easy idea is to say, ‘Okay, now there’s more heads’,” Masuda says, going to the whiteboard behind him to illustrate his point. “We always want to make sure we think, ‘Why does that happen?’ And when it evolves why does it have three heads? So that’s just something we’re always trying to think of – what’s the reason for what changes and how it looks?” After hastily drawing the three-headed cat used to illustrate his point, Masuda laughs saying, “Even if I said I really wanted to make this, I would probably get shot down.”
译文
Game Freak从事宝可梦开发工作已超过20年，所以到了这个阶段他们知道什么才是一只好的宝可梦，但进化路线仍然可能很棘手。“经常发生的一件事——嗯，也不算经常——但有时会发生的是，你从一只猫开始，当它进化时，一个简单的想法就是说‘好吧，现在它有更多头了’，”增田说着走向身后的白板来阐明他的观点。“我们总是希望确保我们会思考：‘为什么会发生这种事？’当它进化时，为什么它会有三个头？所以这就是我们一直在努力思考的事情——变化的原因是什么，它为什么长成这样？”在匆匆画完用来阐明观点的三头猫之后，增田笑着说：“即使我说我真的很想做这个，大概也会被否决。”
第一世代锐利棱角分明的眼睛与第七世代西狮海壬圆润柔和眼睛的演变对比
原文
The design process over the years has not remained totally consistent, however, and the community does notice when it shifts. Recently,Reddit user IanMazgeliscreated a post that gained popularity specifically pointing out the way Pokémon’s eyes have changed over the years. Early Pokémon designs feature sharp eyes that were more angular, while later designs round the eyes for a generally softer look. We showed Masuda IanMazgelis’ post in order to find out why the eyes have changed. “It’s definitely conscious of the evolving design, but some of the reason behind that, for example, is in the beginning, the Game Boy had a really limited palette and a very small amount of pixels to express the designs,” Masuda says. “It was hard to make circles so that was one reason a lot of them had a similar look. As the technology evolved we had more options for expression with different shapes and more variety, so I think we’ve focused on trying to have a lot of variety in the eyes, for example.”
译文
然而，多年来的设计流程并非始终如一，而玩家社群也确实会注意到其变化。最近，Reddit 用户 IanMazgelis 创建了一个帖子，专门指出宝可梦的眼睛多年来所发生的变化，该帖子获得了不少关注。早期的宝可梦设计以锐利、更具棱角的眼睛为特征，而后来的设计则将眼睛处理得更加圆润，整体观感更为柔和。我们向增田展示了 IanMazgelis 的帖子，以了解眼睛设计变化的原因。“这确实是对设计演变有所意识的结果，但其中部分原因在于，最初 Game Boy 的调色板非常有限，用来表现设计的像素数量也极少，”增田说道。“画圆形很困难，所以这是许多宝可梦看起来相似的其中一个原因。随着技术的发展，我们在表现手法上有了更多选择，可以运用不同的形状和更丰富的多样性，因此我认为我们一直致力于让眼睛等方面呈现出丰富的多样性。”
原文
The design and process of creating new Pokémon will likely shift and change as the series moves forward, adapting to who is working in the studio and what ideas the studio wants to convey. It’s reassuring to know, however, that nearly no idea is out of bounds.
译文
随着系列不断向前发展，创作新宝可梦的设计与流程很可能会发生转变与变化，以适应工作室中参与创作的人员以及工作室想要传达的理念。然而，令人安心的是，几乎没有任何创意会被视为禁区。
Archive record 档案信息
- Date
- 2017.08.10
- Source
- Here's How Game Freak Designs Pokémon Creatures
- People
- 杉森建（GAME FREAK 艺术总监）、增田顺一（GAME FREAK 制作人）
- Game / Work
- 宝可梦 太阳·月亮
- Page
- 未标注
- Language
- en
- Status
- published