I Can't Sleep Podcast Episode 11: Plants vs Zombies
Fall Asleep Learning About Plants vs Zombies
In this episode of the I Can’t Sleep Podcast, I read to you about the famous video game, Plants vs Zombies. I asked my kids what they wanted an episode about, this was on the top of their list. Whenever their Nana visits, they get to play this on her iPad. I’d rather sleep.
“Plants vs. Zombies director George Fan intended on balancing the game between a “gritty” game and a “sickeningly cute” game. Strong strategic elements were included to appeal to more experienced gamers, while keeping it simple to appeal to casual gamers, without needing too many tutorials. He was inspired to make it a tower defense game after both thinking of a more defense-oriented version of a previous title of his, Insaniquarium, and playing some Warcraft III tower defense mods. While he was looking at the towers in Warcraft III, he felt that plants would make good towers. He wanted to bring something new to the genre with Plants vs. Zombies, and he found common tower defense game play elements such as mazing and juggling to be too awkward, causing him to use the five- and six-lane set-ups that were used in the final version. The game was initially going to be called Weedlings, but as the tower defense concept took off and the personality of the game as a whole evolved, the title was later changed. Originally, enemies were going to be aliens from Insaniquarium, but while sketching concept art, Fan drew a sketch of what he considered the perfect zombie, and the theming was reworked for plants to be fending off zombies.”