GeneralGames.ca

Plants versus Zombies, PopCap Games’ first foray in to the tower defense genre was released earlier this year to great critical success from the gaming community and the gaming press. GeneralGames.ca was lucky enough to have a brief interview with George Fan, the creative mind behind Plants versus Zombies to find out more about the game’s origins and the man behind it. George Fan acted as designer for both Plants versus Zombies and Insaniquarium for PopCap.

Q) Where did the creative process start for including plants as the main line of defense against the zombie invasion?

A) I was messing around with some new game ideas after completing Insaniquarium, one of which was to make a more defense oriented version of Insaniquarium. I was also playing Tower Defense mods in Warcraft III at the time. I looked at the towers in Warcraft III and thought that plants would make some pretty good towers, being stationary and something I could inject a lot of personality into. And that’s how Plants vs. Zombies became a tower defense game. I wanted to make sure to bring something new to the genre, and that was the impetus for reenvisioning how tower defense games could play. Traditional tower defense concepts like ‘mazing’ and ‘juggling’ always felt awkward to me because it would force you to play against the ‘pathing algorithm’ of the enemies. It was a little too esoteric for my tastes, so I worked to pare the gameplay down to the 5 lane configuration you see today.

Q) How did PopCap develop ideas for the unique zombie types?

A) There are over 25 types of zombies in the game. Each has its own unique characteristic that makes it tricky to deal with. For instance, take the ladder zombie. Early in the game you’re given the wall-nut plant, which is great for blocking off zombies so that your peashooters can attack them with ease. Well, the ladder zombie screws with that plan by running up to your wall-nuts and placing his ladder on top of them, allowing him and his zombie friends to climb over the wall-nuts, avoiding them altogether. Of course, for every zombie, we have to give you a plant to counteract it. In the ladder zombie’s case, the plant is called the magnet-shroom, which can suck the ladder out of his hands before he even has a chance to place it down!

Q) With so many tower-defense type games already available why did PopCap choose a similar game mechanic, and how did you innovate on it?

A) My goal was to take the tower defense standards and simplify them down to the point that almost anyone could pick up and play. With that in mind, I kept the playfield small and removed some of the things found in traditional tower defense that might not be as intuitive. There’s also the resource harvesting element that’s not found in other tower defense games. Also, I don’t think there’s a tower defense game out there that’s quite as ridiculous as Plants vs. Zombies is. My goal was to pile the hilarity so high that no other tower defense game could compare.

Q) Plants versus Zombies is the most complex title we’ve seen from PopCap, is this a trend you think will continue?

A) (Garth Chouteau, VP of Public Relations, PopCap Games) We never set out to target a particular audience with our games. We always intend to make a “game for everyone” and hope that such games will strike a chord with casual and ‘hardcore’ gamers alike. That said, we’ve been infusing a bit more in the way of ‘hardcore’ elements into our most recent games like Bejeweled Twist, Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies – and our next new game, arriving in about 5 weeks, will maintain this trend. From where we stand, this is more a function of the overall video game audience merging than anything else. Our earlier games, like Bejeweled, Zuma, Chuzzle and Bookworm, had/have reasonably large followings among hardcore gamers, but with the arrival of more casual content on console systems and mobile gaming devices, and the attention that Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies have received from traditionally hardcore websites like Gamespot and Destructoid and CrispyGamer, the hardcore gaming audience is now much more receptive to the prospect of playing casual games – at least, top-tier casual games like ours, which involve as much blood, sweat and tears as almost any hardcore game in terms of the creative and development processes.

Q) Can we expect any more content for Plants versus Zombies or a sequel?

A) (Garth Chouteau) Sorry, we don’t comment on upcoming games in most instances. All we can say at the moment is that PvZ is being adapted for XBLA, and it will be coming to other platforms and devices down the road. As for a PvZ 2, we’ve not yet decided on whether that will happen.