Rich Werner was the main artist, Tod Semple served as programmer, and Laura Shigihara composed the game's music.

After the buyout, Plants vs. Zombies was followed by a multimedia franchise including two sequels, three third-person shooters, two comic book series, and several spin-off games, most of which have received positive reviews.

[6][9] The player can pick a limited number of types of plants through seed packets at the beginning of each level,[12] and must pay to place them using a currency called "sun".

[14] If a zombie reaches the end of that lane without any last line of defense, the player has to restart the level (or streak for Vasebreaker Endless).

[8][13] Survival mode offers a selection of levels in which the player chooses plants to defeat increasingly challenging waves of zombies.

[24][25] Enemies were at first the aliens from Insaniquarium, but while Fan was sketching concept art, he drew what he considered "the perfect zombie", and the theming was reworked.

[22][27] Fan included elements from the trading card game Magic: The Gathering, which he had played with his girlfriend, Laura Shigihara.

[23][25] When the concept of Plants vs. Zombies was first established as a sequel to Insaniquarium, Fan wanted to make a game where the aliens invade the player's garden.

[25] Fan enjoyed the idea of plants defending against the zombies, combining two distinct species that were not yet touched by other game developers at the time.

[27] Plants playing as the role of towers made sense to him, acting as stationary defense against the recurring waves of zombies.

"Vasebreaker" and "I, Zombie" originated from those ideas as individual levels before Fan, who enjoyed tweaking them, separated them and their variants into Puzzle mode.

[20] Later, the development of Plants vs. Zombies consisted of Fan testing the game and writing down notes of what could be done to tweak it before sending them off to Semple.

The in-game messages were also made to be as short and easy-to-read as possible; with the dialogue from Crazy Dave being broken up into small chunks of text to match this.

[25] Fan purposely gave all the plants and zombies names that matched their individual functions, designing them accordingly—for example, a Peashooter shoots pea projectiles, a Wall-nut acting as a wall.

[20] The game's sole human character, Crazy Dave, was a parody of David Rohrl, a person Fan knew.

[35] Fan's favorite zombie was Dr. Zomboss; the team spent a full month designing the fight against him at the end of the game.

She drew influence from Danny Elfman's soundtracks and a wide range of musical styles: One song uses marching band percussion and swing; another utilizes techno beats with "organic" sounds.

[42][58] In March 2010, a technology blog named PadGadget found unintentionally public entries for ports of iPhone games to the iPad, Plants vs. Zombies among them.

[66][67] In May 2011, PopCap Games officially announced that Chuzzle would be available on the Amazon Appstore for Android devices for the next two weeks, with Plants vs. Zombies becoming available later in the month.

It rose to number one in sales and money grossed from a mobile video game before losing the spot nine days after release.

[126] Others disagreed:[12] GameSpot editor Chris Watters said, "Tower defense veterans will have to endure a lot of simple, familiar action in order to find a real challenge, and the wait may prove too long for some";[8] GamePro's Tae Kim said that Plants vs. Zombies was not particularly easy or hard, and that he never had to restart despite being "terrible at these sorts of games.

[16][17] Wired's Earnest Cavalli said that while the idea behind Plants vs. Zombies sounds macabre, "every level of the game offers something to laugh about".

[112] IGN editor Daemon Hatfield praised the game's music; he called it a "catchy, organic soundtrack that becomes more intense as your yard is flooded with enemies".

[40] In contrast, Walker found the soundtrack "disappointing" and stated, "After the promise of the gorgeous music video, the hope of similarly catchy in-game tunes is not kept.

[84][109][130] The Nintendo DS port was commended for its four new mini-games and its versus mode from the Xbox 360 version, but was considered inferior in its animation and graphics.

The port was also criticized for its comparatively high price, for the DS top screen's sole usage as an indicator of level progression, and for unstable frame rate.

[146] After a statement by Edmund McMillen, creator of The Binding of Isaac, rumors circulated that Fan was fired by EA because he opposed implementing pay-to-win mechanics in Plants vs. Zombies 2.

[147][148] Three former PopCap employees have argued against the notion that Fan was fired because of his concerns over the game, including Allen Murray, a former producer of Plants vs. Zombies 2.

[150] The game idea was received positively and Fan formed a company along with Werner, the artist of Plants vs. Zombies, and Kurt Pfeiffer, the programmer of the Xbox 360 port.

Fan said his favorite homage to the game is the Magic: The Gathering card "Grave Bramble",[29] created as part of the Innistrad expansion.