Plants vs. Zombies
"Plants vs. Zombies" was initially designed by Fan alone. Because Fan was a full-time employee at PopCap Games, the video game company helped build up a small team consisting of a composer (Laura Shigihara), a programmer (Tod Semple), and an artist (Rich Werner). Fan was based in San Francisco, while Werner was in Seattle. Stephen Notley is credited as being a writer for "Plants vs. Zombies". He wrote the plant and zombie descriptions in the in-game guide, the Suburban Almanac. Fan found working in small teams to be easier than working in large teams. According to an interview with "Edge", while searching for an artist, Fan discovered Rich Werner, whose work Fan thought matched with his design intentions. Fan attributed the design's intrigue to its animation scheme; Tod Semple suggested using Adobe Flash, which Fan worried would generate an animation "cut out from paper" and too closely resembling "South Park", but he was ultimately satisfied, crediting Semple and Werner's talent. "Plants vs. Zombies" was made using PopCap Games's own engine: PopCap Framework. Fan consistently posted updates of "Plants vs. Zombies" every four months in an internal forum within PopCap Games called Burrito, where he accepted feedback from the employees of PopCap.