The game took inspiration from the games Magic: The Gathering and Warcraft III along with the movie Swiss Family Robinson. Zombies was designed by George Fan, who conceptualized it as a more defense-oriented sequel to his fish simulator game Insaniquarium (2001), then developed it into a tower defense game featuring plants fighting against zombies. If a zombie happens to make it to the house on any lane, the player loses the level. The player collects a currency called sun to buy plants.
As a horde of zombies approaches along several parallel lanes, the player must defend their home by putting down plants, which fire projectiles at the zombies or otherwise detrimentally affect them.
The player takes the role of a homeowner amid a zombie apocalypse. First released for Windows and Mac OS X, the game has since been ported to consoles, handhelds, and mobile devices. Zombies is a 2009 tower defense video game developed and published by PopCap Games.
