How to Play Plants Vs. Zombies
- 1). Start the adventure. Handily enough, clicking "Start Adventure" begins the game. The scene is the player's front yard, which starts as one lane, or row, of grass. Click on the Peashooter seed packet (card) as the game directs, and choose a square of grass on which to plant it. The Peashooter shoots peas at zombies, which stagger across the lawn toward the house. If a zombie gets past the plant defense, and the lawnmower backup, it will enter the house and eat the character's brains. Ten peas will kill your basic zombie, the ones without hats.
- 2). Collect suns. As the battle commences, suns will fall from the sky. Click on them; each will add 25 to the total at the top left of the screen. Each plant listed at the top of the screen (just the Peashooter to start) has a number; you need that many suns to buy one. At the end of the first skirmish, collect the sunflower seed packet. In the next round, in addition to the suns falling from the sky, the sunflower will pop out suns occasionally.
- 3). Continue fighting. The levels continue with more zombies and hardier ones (if a zombie has a hat, the plants must knock off the hat before they can knock off its head). After the warm-up levels, the plants will have five rows in which to defend the house---six rows on the pool levels. Note the progress meter at the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
- 4). Choose the plants. There are six plant slots in the beginning (players have the opportunity to buy more later), so once the player have collected more than six plants, she will have to choose which six to use on the next level. Hint: Before choosing, the player will be able to see which kinds of zombies he will be facing, which can inform the decision. Some plants work only at night. Always choose a sun-producing plant.
- 5). Listen to Crazy Dave. The neighbor, Crazy Dave, will appear from time to time to explain what's going to happen next.
- 6). Collect coins. Sometimes a zombie's death will yield a silver or gold coin. Collect them to use in Crazy Dave's tailgate shop, another element that will be unlocked later in the game.
- 7). Branch out. The mini-games, puzzle modes and survival levels are locked at the start of the game, but can be visited later for some gaming variety, and in some cases, the opportunity for tons of coins. The Zen garden, once available, is also a coin-producing area---though players have to drop some money there as well.
