大家都在玩“旅行青蛙” 养蛙是一种什么样的体验

A few short weeks after its release, a Japanese mobile game featuring a traveling frog has become a hit in China.

在发布短短几周之后，一款以旅行青蛙为特色的日本手机游戏在中国成为热门。

The game is called Tabi Kaeru, or Travel Frog. It was created by Hit-Point, the Japanese company that released the popular game Neko Atsume, or Kitty Collector, in 2014.

这个游戏叫做Tabi Kaeru，或者旅行青蛙。它是由2014年发行热门游戏Neko Atsume或Kitty Collector的日本公司Hit-Point创作的。

It is played like this: A frog sits in its stone hut, eating and reading, while you collect clover from the front yard. The clover is used to buy food, which the frog takes on a journey.

是这样玩的：一只青蛙坐在石屋里吃饭读书，而你从前院收集三叶草。三叶草是用来购买食物给青蛙在旅途中吃的。

Once the frog leaves on a trip, it’s unclear how long it will be gone. Sometimes it travels for hours or even days. When it returns, it provides snapshots and mementos of its journey.

一旦青蛙去旅行，你不清楚它会消失多久。有时它会旅行几个小时甚至几天。当它返回时，它会带回来照片和纪念品。

For whatever reason, this seems to be a concept that Chinese mobile gamers have been waiting for. The state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday that Travel Frog had risen to the top of the free simulation game category in Apple’s App Store in China. It is being widely discussed on social media, where users post photos of their frogs’ adventures.

无论出于何种原因，这似乎是中国手机玩家一直在等待的游戏。新华社周二报道说，“旅行青蛙”已经上升到苹果在中国APP商店的免费模拟游戏类别的榜首。在社交媒体上广泛讨论，用户分享青蛙旅行的照片。

The secret of the game’s appeal isn’t readily obvious. But the frog is cute, for one thing. Some players say they enjoy the feeling of traveling vicariously.

这个游戏的吸引力并不那么明显。但是，青蛙可爱是其一。一些玩家说，他们喜欢旅游的代入感。

And it’s also really easy.

而且游戏也很简单。

“You don’t need to do a lot of things, you don’t even need to think about anything,” said Yu Ting, a 28-year-old accountant in the northeastern city of Tianjin. “It’s not a competitive game, so it’s very relaxing.”

天津市28岁的会计师俞婷说：“你不需要做太多的事情，甚至不需要考虑任何事情。 这不是一个竞争性的游戏，所以非常轻松。”

The game also has a strong connection to child rearing. Before the frog leaves on a trip, you have to pack its lunch. And in Chinese, the word for “frog,” wa, is a homophone for a word for “baby.”

这个游戏也和孩子抚养有很强的联系。青蛙离开之前，你必须打包午餐。在中文里，青蛙的“蛙”，和“娃”同音。

“My friends and I all call the frogs our ‘frog sons,’ ” said Gao Lang, 22, a graduate student in Beijing. “After raising this frog, I suddenly understand the feeling of being a parent, at least partly. And I think when I am traveling somewhere far in the future, I will try to send some photos to my parents.”

北京研究生22岁的高浪说：“我和朋友们都把青蛙叫做青蛙儿子。养了这只青蛙后，我突然明白了做父母的感觉，至少有那么一点儿。而且我想，当我在未来的某个地方旅行的时候，我会试着把一些照片发给我的父母。”

On Thursday came a sign that Travel Frog had truly made it: finger-wagging from the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, which warned people not to embrace the ethos of the game.

星期四，“旅行青蛙”似乎真的成为热门。中国官方报纸《人民日报》发文警告人们不要受到游戏风气的影响。

“Live to the fullest and don’t be just a lonely ‘frog-raising youth,’ ” it said Thursday on its official Weibo account.

周四在其官方微博上说：“要充分生活，不要只是做一个孤独的‘青蛙养殖青年’。”

To most players, that probably doesn’t need saying.

对于大多数玩家来说，这可能不言自明。

“Some people compare it with raising a child,” said Zhu Juan, 35, a sales director at a medical instrument company in Beijing. “I have a 3-year-old daughter, and I know it’s different.”

北京一家医疗器械公司35岁的销售总监朱娟说：“有些人把养蛙比做养子。 我有一个3岁的女儿，我知道这是不同的。”