Death comes as a sudden, unpleasant surprise in They Are Billions. It's a real-time strategy game strongly reminiscent of late-'90s classics like Age of Empires or StarCraft, but rather than a symmetrical battle against other civilizations, you struggle against a horde of mindless zombies. The slightest breach in your defenses can mean that your base is infected, causing an explosive—and usually game-ending—surge as the zombies convert your helpless citizen residents into more zombies. A single shuffling zombie that sneaks past a poorly placed wall or into a new expansion can lead to a snowball that rolls over your entire base before you know it.
在《亿万僵尸》中，死亡的到来往往都是突然而又令人不快且令人惊讶的。这是一款即时战略游戏，很容易让人联想到上世纪90年代末的经典作品，像《帝国时代》和《星际争霸》。但是这一次并不是与其他文明的对称战争，你要拼命对抗的是一大群无意识的丧尸。哪怕是你防线上最微小的缺口，都意味着你的基地被感染，并最终导致爆发——一般来说这都意味着游戏结束——汹涌而来的丧尸将你无助的居民们转变成更多的僵尸。如果一个落单的、拖着脚步行走的丧尸，由于你摆放围墙时的疏忽，溜进了你的基地，都会在你意识到这一切之前用滚雪球的方式毁灭你的整个基地。
Director Jesús Arribas took the time to speak with me about what led Numantian Games to make a game about a zombie plague, as well as how their own viral growth ended up getting out of hand.
主管JA（人名简称）花时间和我谈了谈是什么让Numantian Games（公司名）制作出这样一个关乎丧尸瘟疫的游戏，以及丧尸是如何病毒性地增长并一发不可收拾。
Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
为了使问答较为简短清晰，所有问答都经过了编辑。
PC Gamer: They Are Billions is quite a departure from Numantian's previous game, Lords of Xulima. That game was a very traditional role-playing game in the vein of Might & Magic and Wizardry. How did Numantian Games go from straight-laced fantasy to this offbeat survival strategy game?
PC玩家：《亿万僵尸》和Numantian之前的游戏《Lords of Xulima》大相径庭。那款游戏是一部非常传统的以魔法、巫术为主的角色扮演游戏。是什么让Numantian Games从一款拘谨的神话游戏，做到一部非传统的生存策略类游戏呢？
Jesús Arribas: They are very different themes and genre, but if you play both, you can see the same author’s touch, like the same painter who draws two different scenes.
Most developers tend to think that they must take care of the players, that they need everything easy and straightforward. But we don't.
JA：他们的主题和种类的确很不一样，但如果你两个都玩，你会发现同一个作者留下的痕迹，就像同一个画家画了两幅画一样。大多数开放团队倾向于认为他们必须去照顾玩家，也就是说玩家需要游戏里的一切事物都很简单且直白。但我们不这么想。

【以下段落较长且提到了其他游戏，为节约时间仅翻译和亿万僵尸的发展趋势有关的段落】
Real-time strategy games have followed a similar trajectory as RPGs. The classic titles were very challenging and hard to master. You had the freedom to play the missions the way you liked. You were free to lose if you made stupid decisions. But at the same time, when you won, it was very rewarding. We have always been fans of RPGs and strategy games. We tried bringing back that feel of the old-school RPGs to the present with Lords of Xulima.
We have the same goal with the RTS genre and They Are Billions. You have to manage the economy and the resources, expand the colony, build an army, attack your enemies to clear areas, reach new resource sources, and of course, defend your base from the infected hordes. And this is just the Survival Mode.
We are working on the Campaign which is a bit more similar to classic RTS, with a big story, tactical missions, and much more content.
【我们正在制作战役模式，有点像经典的即时战略游戏，有着宏伟的故事，富有策略性的任务，和很多很多的内容】
Losing in They Are Billions happens very fast. Any failure means zombies convert your built-up resources into more zombies very quickly—and you even warn players about this threat. Why does They Are Billions have such a sharp death spiral into failure and game over?
JA: In this game, the zombies are not just an excuse to have an enemy to fight—they are the central pillar of They Are Billions. This is not about killing enemies. This is about combating the infection—the same infection that destroyed the world and is the main threat to the new survivors. You could have a massive colony and suddenly find it in ruins because of a single infected breaking through. Fear and danger are constant.
The infection is the real threat to the survival of the colony. We know many players can get frustrated because of this. There is no other game like this. So, when a player loses their first colony because of a single decrepit zombie, they can hardly believe it. It is part of the fun. Nevertheless, a full game can last 2-3 hours if you survive all the way to the end. It is a game about surviving and improving your survival skills, not winning. If your score gets higher every time you play, then you are doing great.
Most developers tend to think that they must take care of the players, that they need everything easy and straightforward. But we don't. Players are much smarter than we give them credit for. When they are challenged with a game like this, where there is no hand-holding at all and even losing is fun, they actually love the experience.
Shooting zombies can fit into all sorts of settings, from traditional high fantasy to far-future science fiction. Why steampunk? What about Victorian aesthetics made them feel like a good fit for a survival game?
JA: From a development point of view, we thought that it would be super interesting to mix a steampunk society with their low technology with a zombie apocalypse. Watching the Titan, a steam machine driven by an educated gentleman with Victorian manners, destroying zombies is something worth experiencing.
【从我们开发者的角度来看，我们认为把蒸汽朋克的低端科技和丧尸末日结合在一起是超级有趣的。看看泰坦吧，由一个维多利亚装束的、有教养的绅士驾驶的蒸汽机器，用它来毁灭僵尸是值得一试的。】
Because it is set in the future, the 22nd century, one may question, "What has happened to the civilization and the modern world? Why has technology gone backward to a 19th century level? Where did the zombies come from?" You have to play the campaign to find the answers.
【因为整个游戏是被设置在第22世纪的未来，也许有人会问：“人类文明和现代世界发生了什么？为什么科技水平回到了19世纪的样子？丧尸是从哪来的？”这就需要你通过玩战役来寻找答案了】
A significant departure from Numantian Games' previous work is the shift from crowdfunding on Kickstarter to launching straight to Steam Early Access. Why didn't you head to Kickstarter a second time?
We had to release the game about six months earlier than what we would have liked. Fortunately, the launch on Early Access has been very successful.
【我们不得不比原计划提早六个月发布这款游戏。幸运的是，这个早期版本取得了很大的成功】
JA: Instead of launching a Kickstarter, which requires months of work and preparation, we decided to do something softer and just to launch a campaign directly from our official Numantian Games website. We thought that it would be a great idea to let the backers play the Survival mode to collect feedback and test the game, [so] we then added Steam beta keys to the rewards and released the [crowdfunding] campaign on Halloween.
And what happened? People started to purchase the game, play it, and upload videos to YouTube. The game went viral very fast. So fast in fact, that we ran out of Steam beta keys in one week for the lower tier, then in a few days the next tier, and so on...
In two weeks, we ran out of beta keys—we originally had 10,000. We asked Valve for more beta keys, but we were unable to acquire any more keys until we released the game on Steam. We ended up in a situation where big YouTubers were playing the game, but people were unable to purchase and play it as well.
We made the decision to release the game with just the Survival Mode on Steam Early Access. Then we could work on the main game mode, Campaign mode, during the Early Access phase. We had to release the game about six months earlier than what we would have liked. Fortunately, the launch on Early Access has been very successful. We are still on the top seller list since the launch, the comments and reviews are very positive.
【上方段落大意：我们本来只是打算在官网上直接发布游戏，让玩家参与测试，我们收获玩家的反馈。结果一下子太火了测试名额不够用了，我们干脆直接在Steam上把这个早期版本发布了。这样一来，我们就可以着手制作游戏的主体部分，也就是战役模式】
Where do you plan to go from here? What's your first priority to add (or fix) in the near future? What are your goals before leaving Early Access? And what are your plans once They Are Billions reaches 1.0?
【问：你们打算将游戏发展到什么程度呢？未来你们打算最先加入什么？你们对于这个抢先测试版的目标是什么？还有就是《亿万僵尸》如果走到1.0版本，你们对1.0版本的计划又是什么呢？】
JA: We are working in parallel on two different fronts. First, solving bugs and fixing problems and hardware compatibility issues. And second, making the game multi-language. Our goal is to have the game in eight languages in just a few weeks. The game is selling well all over the world, so we want as many players as possible to enjoy it in their own language.
【JA：我们同时在进行两项工作。第一，修复bug，解决问题和硬件存储问题。第二，让游戏拥有多种语言。我们的计划是在几周内让游戏拥有8种语言。这款游戏在世界各地都很畅销，所以我们想让尽可能多的玩家通过他们自己的语言来享受这款游戏】
After that, we are working on more features for the Survival mode, new buildings and zombies. [Another upcoming new mode is] Challenge of the Week. In that challenge, all the players can compete for getting the highest score playing the same survival map. We think it will be very funny as even the developers will participate in the challenge every week.
【在这之后，我们将为生存模式加入更多特色，新的建筑和新的丧尸。另一个将要推出的模式是“每周挑战”。在这个挑战中，玩家可以玩同一张地图，比拼得分的高低。我们认为这将非常有趣，而且我们的开发人员也将参与到每周挑战当中】
Finally, we continue working on the campaign. Thanks to the success of the game we can invest more in creating a memorable and epic campaign. Stay tuned!
【最后，我们将继续制作游戏的战役模式。多亏了游戏的大卖，我们才能投资更多来创造一个值得回忆的、史诗般的战役。欢迎继续关注！】

感谢搬运！

还有很多可以开发
不过感觉 科技树已经有点臃肿了
如果再后续添加的话 感觉会疯

希望以后能增强一下大后期难度 有时候中期经济起来了大后期的胜利都可以预见了，这降低了游戏的乐趣

总觉着开发重点好像偏了，当然，也可能是我的错觉
看看星际，帝国什么的吧，战役模式都不是什么重点，也可能是我不喜欢战役模式

缺点早就说过了，丧失AI实在太差，尸潮AI进攻模式更差（起码也要多方面同时攻击，才能体现玩家的战略意识）如果是刻意为了给大家一条活路，好像也说不通，那就没必要设定高难度了

联机模式才应该是重点，这年头不能联机的游戏没太长的生命里

我记得星际争霸就有一个电脑打7个玩家的RPG地图啊，曾经流行一时呢，既然僵尸这么样强势的话，联机模式让几个玩家一起抱团防守也是可以的吧？？？

所以咱们买的是DLC，正缺一个免费的正版战役

我最期待的是无限生存模式 不知道会不会有

只有我一个挑初始地的吗