Today’s comic is our little homage to a game that has been in my recent thoughts entries; Plants vs. Zombies. I really love everything about the game and being that it was the first game that I’ve played in this particular genre, I have to say it has been a wonderful experience. The art style, music and gameplay are superb and I would very easily recommend to anyone that has a PC and enjoys gaming to shell out the $20 for the full version. To be honest, I originally just wanted to play the demo to check it out, but the demo itself was so thorough and enticing that I really couldn’t justify NOT getting it.

As far as the star of this comic goes, he isn’t actually in the game – but during the making I was imagining how cool it would actually be to have a flaming zombie in PvZ. One of the neat things about the game is how many units it has and how you can be rather diverse in your defense patterns. So here is my idea for adding flames to zombies in PvZ:

Flaming Zombie changes your perception on zombie-plant-relations.

• Toughness: Medium
• Speed: Fast, then slow (after losing fire)
• Special: Spreads fire to other zombies, making them faster.

Flaming Zombie wanted to do in death what he never could in life; be on fire. Who says zombies are weak to fire? Certainly not Flaming Zombie.

And here are his special characteristics:
• * Spreads fire to all zombies in his row within 1 column of him.
• * If blover is used against him, spreads fire to adjacent rows.
• * If flaming zombie happens into the pool (garlic, fire spread), creates fog in all adjacent cells.
• * Chomper can not eat Flaming Zombie (how could he, flaming zombie is on FIRE!)
• * Snow Pea’s attacks will not slow flaming zombie (but he will take half damage)
• * Fume shroom’s fumes will create an explosion on contact of flaming zombie in a 5 cell area (contact and direct cardinal adjacent cells). This explosion will affect friendly and enemy units.
• * Butter from Kernal-pult will melt on contact with flaming zombie, immobilizing all zombies that come into the 1-cell butter puddle (slipping).
• * Using ice shroom against flaming zombie will remove his fire.

Of course, there is no telling how these ideas would fit into game balance, but I still think it is fun to think of different possibilities that the game invites. Needless to say, I will be happy to see a sequel to the game and I will definitely be looking out for other Pop Cap games from now on. Last but not least, check out Laura Shigihara, the composer to PvZ, here and here. Pie and I have been listening to her stuff lately and it is just awesome! We will definitely be looking forward to more compositions from her.

I generally don't really like "tower defense" games. I think this feeling stems mainly from always seeing (and sometimes watching) my brother spend countless hours playing amateur made ones on Newgrounds. There are so many games of this genre that are just carbon copies of one another with almost no innovation that I've pretty much become prejudice against them for the most part. It was very refreshing seeing Bear play Plants versus Zombies however because the creators added just enough of a creative spin to launch their game far above the others in every way. The game has beautiful art and music, there are a large variety of creative usable units, threats, and play modes, and I love the small surprises added once in a while to mix things up. Plants versus Zombies is a game that has put the genre into a new light for me, showing me that there is still hope for the tower defense genre to be unique and creative. I very much enjoyed doing this comic, I guess partly because it's an homage towards the game.

Thinking about Plants versus Zombies has been inspiring lately. It's got me thinking again how much I want to be successful too in bringing something wonderful to people that they can enjoy. I want to touch people, to inspire them, to be successful. Sometimes it feels like I'm chasing a dream while in a dream because what I want is very definite in my heart, but isn't definite in reality. It always seems like it's so far away. Sometimes I'm afraid because I don't know how to get there and I don't know if I'll be able to reach it. It's funny though too because I have a feeling that even if I ever do reach it, I'll still be chasing after a shadow that is higher. Sometimes I'm afraid because I don't think I'm working enough meanwhile focused towards my goal. If you want something, you put all you have into it, right? *sigh* Anyway-

On another note- Square Enix released a tower defense game on the Playstation Network titled Final Fantasy the Crystal Defenders. Bear tried it out before trying the demo of Plants vs Zombies and it's just as bland and un-innovative as I expected. -_- I wasn't surprised, but I think Bear was curious since the demo was free. I can't believe Squeenix decided to put the FF title on a game like that and expected to make a profit. It pisses me off! >O I know you guys get enough of this from Bear of the past few Life in Aggro entries, but I think it's just sad how far it seems they've fallen.