INTRODUCTION
Plants Vs Zombies was in many ways a game that can only come out in 2008. Any earlier and it’d likely just be another dime a dozen flash game on some now defunct website you gotta find mirrored on www.definitelynotgonnagiveyouavirussoenjoythisfungame.com. Any later and it’s a free to play game littered with one dimensional skitterbox design shilled by B-tier YouTubers desperately convincing themselves Manscaped ad revenue and their obsession with Brie Larson will make their degree in digital media studies worth it. No, Plants Vs Zombies had to come out the same year as Julia & Julia to be what it is.
WE’RE COMING!
The game essence is that of a rather simple tower defense game with a surprising amount of depth under the surface. You have 5 lanes of grass that are entryways to your home (base) and you have to use your plants (weapons and tools) to defend it from zombies (enemies) while managing your energy to grow plants (sun). This defensive process can take several different forms and require different considerations that need to be mixed and matched depending on your circumstances. In short, Every plant type in your garden composition is a lever you must pull at the precise time. Is the zombie horde coming at your base composed of a bunch of digging zombies? Better use the David Cronenberg pea plant that shoots backwards in your garden composition . Are the zombies in the opposing army tanky? Gonna need to have some instant kill plants like the cherry bomb or chili pepper on hand. Fog in the area inhibiting your strategic view? Blow it away with the clover plant. I could go on and on but surely you see my point by now. The game has a shitload of flexibility with room for player expression without overwhelming its core demographic of casual players. One of my favorite anecdotes about this actually comes from my middle school years where I used to exchange tips with a teacher up the hall from my language arts class that hadn’t touched a controller since the NES. It bears mentioning this is a conversation that probably wouldn’t have been possible without the intuitive touch controls of the IOS releases. These controls made the game inviting to less experienced players while also making the gameplay ceiling higher by allowing for quicker on the fly reactions. Thus allowing the dev team to throw complex zombie configurations like the Zomboss fight and endless levels at the player by the late game regardless of skill level.
WE’RE GOING BOWLING!
The mingames of Plants Vs Zombies are pretty emblematic of a strength of this dev team to build a simple easy to understand formula and subvert it in basically any way they can imagine to give the player a shitload of varied gameplay to experience when going for 100% completion(even pulling from other Popcap titles at times for inspiration). From the more reflex focused walnut bowling to testing the players improvisation skills with the random convey belt levels George Fan’s team did an excellent job ringing out every angle they could out of this premise to the point this almost feels like the video game equivalent of lean gimmick set piece action movies like “Speed”, “Crank”, and “Hardcore Henry”.
I use “gimmick” purely as a term of endearment to the style of craftsmanship as I think it has its place.
ZOMBIES ON YOUR LAWN
Popcap games tend to be very “function over form” games in terms of presentation. This is to say they prioritize communicating a gameplay concept to the player or a decent frame rate performance over visual flourishes. This is a long way of saying the game’s enemy designs do an excellent job of articulating how they work to a new player. As a case study I’ll highlight the pole vault zombie. In 2008 there was a summer olympics games so the idea of pole vaulting would’ve naturally been in the public zeitgeist even if someone wasn’t a sports fanatic. Thus, when a player is first exposed to this enemy they are likely to infer the enemies ability to skip a tile and plan accordingly with plant formations. Sound design follows a similar train of thought with zombies sounds being used to signal a wave is coming soon so the player has a few seconds to rebuild their plant flanks or collect any sun or cash laying around the garden.
CONCLUSION
Plants vs Zombies is probably one of the best smartphone centric games ever released due to its intuitive controls and kirbyism like design philosophy. While I think the “free” to play aspects of the smartphone side of the industry often incorrectly paint deeper experiences as an impossibility for the sector. I believe this game shows that it is largely more a consequence of late stage capitalism optimizing everything into a grindset treadmill than an intrinsic quality of the platform.
Plants Vs Zombies was in many ways a game that can only come out in 2008. Any earlier and it’d likely just be another dime a dozen flash game on some now defunct website you gotta find mirrored on www.definitelynotgonnagiveyouavirussoenjoythisfungame.com. Any later and it’s a free to play game littered with one dimensional skitterbox design shilled by B-tier YouTubers desperately convincing themselves Manscaped ad revenue and their obsession with Brie Larson will make their degree in digital media studies worth it. No, Plants Vs Zombies had to come out the same year as Julia & Julia to be what it is.
WE’RE COMING!
The game essence is that of a rather simple tower defense game with a surprising amount of depth under the surface. You have 5 lanes of grass that are entryways to your home (base) and you have to use your plants (weapons and tools) to defend it from zombies (enemies) while managing your energy to grow plants (sun). This defensive process can take several different forms and require different considerations that need to be mixed and matched depending on your circumstances. In short, Every plant type in your garden composition is a lever you must pull at the precise time. Is the zombie horde coming at your base composed of a bunch of digging zombies? Better use the David Cronenberg pea plant that shoots backwards in your garden composition . Are the zombies in the opposing army tanky? Gonna need to have some instant kill plants like the cherry bomb or chili pepper on hand. Fog in the area inhibiting your strategic view? Blow it away with the clover plant. I could go on and on but surely you see my point by now. The game has a shitload of flexibility with room for player expression without overwhelming its core demographic of casual players. One of my favorite anecdotes about this actually comes from my middle school years where I used to exchange tips with a teacher up the hall from my language arts class that hadn’t touched a controller since the NES. It bears mentioning this is a conversation that probably wouldn’t have been possible without the intuitive touch controls of the IOS releases. These controls made the game inviting to less experienced players while also making the gameplay ceiling higher by allowing for quicker on the fly reactions. Thus allowing the dev team to throw complex zombie configurations like the Zomboss fight and endless levels at the player by the late game regardless of skill level.
WE’RE GOING BOWLING!
The mingames of Plants Vs Zombies are pretty emblematic of a strength of this dev team to build a simple easy to understand formula and subvert it in basically any way they can imagine to give the player a shitload of varied gameplay to experience when going for 100% completion(even pulling from other Popcap titles at times for inspiration). From the more reflex focused walnut bowling to testing the players improvisation skills with the random convey belt levels George Fan’s team did an excellent job ringing out every angle they could out of this premise to the point this almost feels like the video game equivalent of lean gimmick set piece action movies like “Speed”, “Crank”, and “Hardcore Henry”.
I use “gimmick” purely as a term of endearment to the style of craftsmanship as I think it has its place.
ZOMBIES ON YOUR LAWN
Popcap games tend to be very “function over form” games in terms of presentation. This is to say they prioritize communicating a gameplay concept to the player or a decent frame rate performance over visual flourishes. This is a long way of saying the game’s enemy designs do an excellent job of articulating how they work to a new player. As a case study I’ll highlight the pole vault zombie. In 2008 there was a summer olympics games so the idea of pole vaulting would’ve naturally been in the public zeitgeist even if someone wasn’t a sports fanatic. Thus, when a player is first exposed to this enemy they are likely to infer the enemies ability to skip a tile and plan accordingly with plant formations. Sound design follows a similar train of thought with zombies sounds being used to signal a wave is coming soon so the player has a few seconds to rebuild their plant flanks or collect any sun or cash laying around the garden.
CONCLUSION
Plants vs Zombies is probably one of the best smartphone centric games ever released due to its intuitive controls and kirbyism like design philosophy. While I think the “free” to play aspects of the smartphone side of the industry often incorrectly paint deeper experiences as an impossibility for the sector. I believe this game shows that it is largely more a consequence of late stage capitalism optimizing everything into a grindset treadmill than an intrinsic quality of the platform.