作者：Joe Jasko

如果最近有人正好偷偷地摸进你的草地，朝你头上扔东西，那么你大概会想起《植物大战僵尸冒险》（《Plants vs. Zombies Adventures》——，以下简称《PvZA》，这是PopCap根据《植物大战僵尸》开发的新社交游戏。事实上，这款社交与“植物塔防”混 搭的游戏最近才登录Facebook平台。

PopCap旧金山工作室总经理Curt Bererton，创意总监Mathilde Pignol在百忙之中抽出时间回答了Gamezebo关于《植物大战僵尸冒险》的几个关键问题。

Gamezebo：玩家们对《植物大战僵尸》的官方续作期待已久，所以当许多粉丝得知另一款完全不同的社交游戏在Facebook平台发布时，他们感到高兴、意外又惊讶。你们是怎么想到《PvZA》的创意的？当你们决定着手这款游戏时，《PvZ2》的开发进展到什么程度了？

Curt Bererton（CB）：《PvZA》的主要目标是成为适合Facebook平台的一款优秀的PvZ游戏。事实上，在项目最初，我们遇到的主要限制条件是，它并不是《PvZ》的直接续作（游戏邦注：因为真正的续作已经在制作中了）。它必须适合Facebook平台，又必须忠于原作。

Mathilde Pignol（MP）：我们其实用完全不同的游戏机制制作了11个不同的原型，最后挑出一个概念：让玩家和抗击僵尸和好友，保护自己的小镇。小镇的设定使我们得以继承“传统的”Facebook游戏机制，例如，玩家可以一边种植物一边抗击僵尸。玩家将会体验到与朋友一起玩、经营小镇和用路上发现的植物保护小镇的乐趣。

CB：这还只是开头；做Facebook游戏的一大优势是，我们可以非常勤快地更新游戏，加入新植物、僵尸和一些非常新的功能。

plants vs.zombies adventures(from facebook.com)

玩家们首先注意到的就是《PvZA》突出的美术风格。你们本可以继续沿用《PvZ》的标志性、熟悉的卡通风格，是什么促使你们的团队决定给僵尸们改头换面？

MP：产生这种独特的美术风格的最大原因是，我们采用3D等距视图，因为我们把焦点放在小镇上，希望僵尸从四面八方围攻它。

如果我们保持像原版《PvZ》那种视图，让玩家通过布置自己的路径和放置植物来保护小镇，就没有那么好玩了。游戏地图更大，意味着僵尸、植物和人类的表情必须更加生动。这就导致了其他变化如角色的头部更大。另外，我们的植物是用3D模型渲染的，所以植物可以瞄准来自任意方向的僵尸。所有这些，都意味着我们不能使用原来的2D美术风格。

至于美术设计本身，我们的美工团队非常能干，他们不仅创造了一种独特的手绘风格，同时保留了原作的精髓。

这一次，草地上到处是僵尸。因为僵尸可以从四面八方攻击，所以构建游戏中的这么多不同的关卡布置，是很艰难的过程吧？

CB：首先，我得说，我们只是刚开始制作这个新机制的皮毛而已。据我们所知，目前还没有类似这个机制的东西存在——敌人（僵尸）在沿着路径前进以前就会攻击炮塔（植物）。借此，我们发现了一个尝试各种新机制的领域。

MP：在确定下来以前，我们尝试了许多不同的战斗机制，包括更直接的路线塔防、开放世界机制（僵尸和植物可以在地图上移动）、回合制RPG式的机制。我们觉得我们已经找到合适的混搭方法，使我们能够通过布置新路径和让僵尸从不同方向进攻加入新玩法，同时仍然保持原作的风味。

到目前为止，我们已经想到许多创意，远远超过你从这种玩法风格中能看到的。我们在后面的更新中，还会推出更多好玩的东西。

pvz adventures(from polygon.com)

我很喜欢新引入的社交元素和免费模式，确实给《PvZ》的核心玩法增加了完全不同的策略，在任何一个关卡中，玩家现在都必须在战略地思考要放置多少植物，因为长出新植物需要花时间和金币。你们如何在传统的植物塔防玩法和社交游戏更广泛更休闲的玩法之间实现平衡？

CB：这对我们来说，确实是棘手的问题。我们其实尝试了若干种其他免费机制。在更早的一个版本中，玩家要花精力让角色捡起资源，然后做成植物。我们做了很长时间。

我们这么设计的目的是，让策略玩家和休闲玩家都能胜任植物塔防的玩法。我们尝试了几个版本，有些太简单，有些太困难，因为水平不同的玩家都使用相同的植物。我们一测试完这个模式，就觉得它很管用，因为它一方面鼓励策略型玩家使用最少数量的植物达到目标，另一方面允许更多休闲玩家放出植物大军帮助他们取胜。

与《PvZ》相比，《PvZA》中多了许多新的植物和僵尸角色，如强大的“Beeshooter”、“Aspearagus” 和铁桶僵尸。从创意或玩法的角度看，你们个人最喜欢的新植物和僵尸是什么？

CB：植物的话，我喜欢甜菜+坚果的混合体。看到铁桶僵尸啃着坚果，而甜菜攻击它的铁桶帽，真是太有趣了；铁桶僵尸是我最喜欢的僵尸种类之一，因为你不能击败铁桶和内衣。DJ僵尸采用最新的摇滚造型，非常难打倒。

MP：我最喜欢的新植物大概是三叶草，它是远程射手，还具有特殊的伪装机制，让僵尸看不到它。当它射出彩虹时，你怎么可能不爱它？

僵尸方面，我喜欢Conga Line僵尸。除非你杀死领舞的僵尸，否则跟班就会一直出现。这种僵尸是这款游戏的第一种女性僵尸。

《PvZ》和《PvZ2》之间是否会出现穿越？

CB：现在《PvZ2》还没出，但至于如何穿越，我们已经想到一些有趣的创意了。拭目以待吧。

多谢你们接受采访！你们还想对期待着《PvZA》的人说些什么吗？

CB和MP：我们想对《PvZA》的所有开发成员说：跟我们合作的是这个行业中最好最聪明的人。与你们共事的每一天都充满快乐。我们珍惜与聪明的人在有趣的地方工作的机会。

最后，我们相信，Facebook的玩家和《PvZ》的粉丝都会体验到新的《PvZ》。僵尸从四面八方包围你、新的植物、僵尸和大量新特点；我们欢迎粉丝反馈，我们将采纳合理的建议。好戏才刚开始，我们期待进步。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

PopCap talks Plants vs. Zombies Adventures: favorite zombies, new gameplay mechanics and more! [Interview]

By Joe Jasko

Unless somebody happened to sneak up to your lawn recently and have a snack on your brains, then you’ve probably been aware of Plants vs. Zombies Adventures, PopCap’s new social take on their beloved Plants vs. Zombies franchise. In fact, the exciting social and “flower defense” hybrid has just gone live on Facebook as of this morning, so if you’re really feeling short on those brain waves, then you know right where to find them.

I had the chance to interview PopCap’s development team about the exciting new project, in between my runs of restocking Sunflowers in my home garden, and frantically trying to stop those new Barrel Zombies from flashing everyone in town. Curt Bererton, General Manager of PopCap San Francisco, and Mathilde Pignol, Creative Director of PopCap San Francisco, recently took some time away from prepping for their big zombie road trip to answer a few of my burning questions about PvZ Adventures.

You can read their fantastic responses below, and be sure to check out the wonderful Plants vs. Zombies Adventures on Facebook today!

Gamezebo: Gamers have been waiting for an official follow-up to Plants vs. Zombies for quite some time now, so it was both a pleasant and unexpected surprise to many fans when a completely separate social game was announced for Facebook. How did the idea of Plants vs. Zombies Adventures first come about? How far were you into the development cycle of Plants vs. Zombies 2 when you decided to embark on this zombie road trip?

Curt Bererton: The primary goal of Plants vs. Zombies Adventures was to make a great PvZ game that was well suited to the Facebook platform. In fact, the primary constraints we had at the beginning of the project were that it wouldn’t be the direct sequel (since that was already in-the-works).  It had to be a great fit for Facebook and it had to be true to the franchise.

Mathilde Pignol:We actually built 11 different prototypes of completely different game mechanics as we narrowed in on the concept of having a town which you needed to defend against the zombies and your friends. The town also let us tap into “traditional” Facebook mechanics such as allowing the players to grow the plants they take on the road to zap zombies. Moving forward, we’re excited to show players how much fun it will be to grow and defend their town with plants they discover on the road trip while playing with others.

CB: We’re also excited that this is just the beginning; one of the great advantages to making games on Facebook is that we’ll be updating the game quite frequently with new plants and zombies as well as some pretty big new features.

GZ: One of the first things that gamers are likely to notice about Plants vs. Zombies Adventures is the game’s unique and different art style. You could have easily stuck with the iconic and familiar cartoony PvZ visuals when making this release. What made your team decide to revamp the zombies’ look for this cool new approach and perspective?

MP:The biggest reason for our unique art style stems from our move to a 3D isometric view due to our focus on the town and the desire to have zombies come from everywhere.

Making the town an interesting space where players defend their buildings by laying out their own paths and positioning their plants simply wouldn’t be as fun if we had kept the same perspective as the original PvZ. Playing on larger maps meant that the zombies’, plants’ and humans’ expressions needed to read well from further away. This led to some of the other changes like having larger heads. Factor in that our plants are rendered 3D models so we can show them facing the zombies from whichever direction they come. All of this meant we really couldn’t just use the original 2D art style.

In terms of the artistic vision itself, we have a fantastic team of artists who really went above and beyond in creating a unique, painted style while remaining true to the spirit of the original.

GZ: The zombies are seriously all over my lawn this time around. Was it a difficult process constructing the dozens of different level layouts in the game, now that zombies can approach you from all four directions? What was it like to work with this expansive new gameplay mechanic?

CB: First let me say that we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what we can do with this new mechanic. To our knowledge, there’s nothing quite like this mechanic out there where enemies (zombies) will attack the towers (plants) before proceeding along the path. This opens up a pretty exciting new domain to try all sorts of cool new mechanics in addition to what we are launching in the game.

MP: We tried a ton of different combat mechanics before settling on this specific one, including more straight path-based tower defense, open world mechanics where zombies and plants could go anywhere on the map, turn-based RPG like mechanics—you name it. We feel we have found just the right hybrid that allows us to introduce new puzzles by laying out new paths and having the zombies come from different directions while still having it feel like the original with the sunflowers and zombies.

We’ve had a ton of fun so far and we have more ideas than you can shake a stick at with this style of gameplay. Stay tuned for more cool stuff as we continue to update the game.

GZ: I love how the newly-introduced social and freemium aspects actually add an entirely different level of strategy to the core PvZ gameplay. Specifically, players now have to strategize about how many plants they should place in any given level, because growing new ones costs them both time and coins. How did you set out to balance the traditional flower-defense gameplay with the broader, more laid-back approach of a social game?

CB: This one was a pretty tricky one for us. We actually tried several other versions of freemium mechanics. In fact, an earlier version had you spending energy to have an avatar pick up resources that you then crafted into plants. We’ve come a long way since then!

The goal was to make it so that both strategic min/maxers as well as more casual players could succeed in the flower defense gameplay. We tried several versions where it was either way too easy, or way too hard if you gave a variety of differently skilled players the exact same plants. Once we tested this model, we felt that it worked quite well in that it gives a very strategic player a goal to make it through combat using the smallest number of plants while making it so that more casual players can put down an army of plants to help them win.

GZ: Plants vs. Zombies Adventures introduces a number of new plant and zombie character types to the PvZ universe, like the powerful “Beeshooter” or “Aspearagus,” and those devious barrel zombies that never seem to cut me a break.  What are some of your personal favorite new plants and zombies, either from a creation or gameplay standpoint?

CB: On the plant side, I really love the Beet + Wall-nut combo. There’s just something so satisfying about having a barrel zombie stop to chew on a Wall-nut while the Beet pounds his barrel off. On the zombie side, Barrel zombie is of one of my favorites as you really can’t beat barrels and underwear. (Don’t forget to check out the detail on the underwear!) DJ Zom-B is styling with the latest beats and is surprisingly tough with all of that bling.

MP:My favorite new plant is probably the Shamrock, a long ranged shooter with a special camouflage mechanic to hide from the zombies. How can you not love him when he shoots out rainbows?

On the zombie side, I love the Conga Line zombies. The leader comes out and until you kill him, the followers keep coming out. The Conga dancers are the first female zombies in the franchise, un-dead equality for all!

GZ: Can gamers expect any future crossovers between Plants vs. Zombies Adventures and the upcoming sequel, Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time?

CB:For now, Plants vs. Zombies 2 isn’t out yet, but we have had some interesting initial discussions about how things could play well together. Stay tuned for more on this in the future.

GZ: Thanks so much for your time! Is there anything else you would like the Gamezebo audience to know about Plants vs. Zombies Adventures?

CB & MP: We’d like to shout out to the whole Plants vs. Zombies Adventures team. We feel we work with some of the best and brightest people in the gaming industry. It’s a pleasure to come to work with the team every day. Having a fun place to work with smart people is something that we treasure.

Lastly, we feel that we’ve got a game that we believe Facebook gamers and PvZ fans alike will believe is a really fresh take on Plants vs. Zombies. It’s got zombies coming from all directions, new plants, zombies and a ton of new features coming in the near future; we’ll be listening to fan feedback and incorporating suggestions and comments into our current plans. This is just the beginning of the ride and we’re looking forward to where we go from here.(source:gamezebo)