GameArena Interviews George Fan, Plants vs Zombies Man

George Fan is credited as the Game Designer for Plants Vs Zombies - the brains behind the brainz so to speak. We managed to score an interview with the boss zombie hot on the release of PopCap's latest title.

GameArena: Straight up, I have to know - did the concept for Plants vs Zombies revolve purely around the line "Prepare to soil your plants"?

George Fan: Haha, if only! Unfortunately, for Plants vs. Zombies, the concept came first, followed by the tagline. However, for my NEXT game, I'm doing it the other way around, starting with the tagline: "If you liked Plants vs. Zombies, you'll love Llamas vs. Vampires!" And I'm probably kidding about that. Probably.

GA: At a superficial level many PopCap games have very basic concepts but a lot of depth. Is this difficult to balance?

George Fan: Yes, balancing basic concepts with depth is definitely something I was conscious of throughout this game's process. Plants vs. Zombies has as much depth as any hardcore game, but the way we present these concepts to the player is different. Many hardcore games try to throw a ton of information at you all at once(or they assume you know all of it already), but Plants vs Zombies presents these concepts to the player at a much more gradual pace.

GA: Was making Plants vs Zombies very different to other projects you've worked on?

George Fan: For my previous game, Insaniquarium, I had to wear many hats, as I did a majority of the programming and game design while helping out with writing the music as well as doing the concept art. Plants vs Zombies was different because it was the first game where I could focus a lot more on just the game design, due to having a team of programmer(Tod Semple), artist(Rich Werner), and musician(Laura Shigihara) working with me from pretty much the get go.

GA: Do you have a favourite zombie or plant in the game? Either from a strategic point of view (Go Starfruit!) or just based on the idea (The... thriller-inspired zombie)?

George Fan: My favorite plant is the squash, I love his attitude and how his name matches up with his purpose: to SQUASH things. My favorite zombie would have to be the final boss. We spent a full month working on him to make sure he was extra awesome.

GA: Beghouled is probably one of my favourite mini-games, but it's quite short. Do you think you might expand the idea behind it - maybe give it it's own survival mode?

George Fan: Hmm... perhaps! Maybe in an expansion pack if that ever happens?

GA: Could you see Plants vs Zombies moving to consoles or handhelds?

George Fan: Yes I could, and I'd love to see it!

GA: PvZ is definitely more hardcore than other PopCap titles. Did you see this as a risky move or a logical step forward?

George Fan: In making PvZ I wasn't really conscious of whether it would be a risky move or logical step. I was really just making a game that I myself would want to play: something that's easy to learn, but offers a lot of strategic depth. Analyzing it now, I don't think of it as a risky move because even though it has hardcore appeal, its so easy to pick up that I feel much of PopCap's original audience will have no problem getting into it. Just the fact that my non-gamer Mom & Dad have logged so many hours into PvZ should be testament to that!

GA: Walk us through an average day at your job.

George Fan: What I do during an average day changes depending on what part of the game's cycle we're on. In the early part of the game's creation, I would spend much of the day brainstorming and coming up with new plants and zombies. In the middle to late phase of the game, I would play through the latest version of the game, jotting down notes about anything that needed tweaking, and sending those notes to Tod, who would work his programming magic and add it to the game. I really love my job. =)

GA: If you could change anything about Plants vs Zombies, what would it be?

George Fan: All in all, I'm extremely happy with how the game turned out. At one point we wanted to call the game "Lawn of the Dead", but couldn't for legal reasons. It's a shame we couldn't keep that title, but I think "Plants vs. Zombies" is a great name too.

GA: If you could take one idea from PvZ and use it somewhere else, what would that be?

George Fan: I'd like to cultivate some peashooters of my own in my front lawn. They'd be trained to hurl peas at door-to-door salesmen.

GA: Peggle Adventures. Bookworm Adventure's story mode, Peggle's... peggling. RPG elements, versus modes and maybe even a punny story involving the Peggle characters. What do you think?

George Fan: Peggle RPG, hmm? Hey, as long as it doesn't involve Bjorn the unicorn sitting in a mage tower with a wizards hat casting spells that do 528 points of lightning damage, I think it could work!

Thanks again to George for taking time out from post-release partying to answer our questions. If anyone at PopCap is reading this, you can send the cheques for the Peggle RPG idea direct to me.