Sunflower

April 2, 2009 at 9:12 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 102 Comments
Tags: plants vs zombies

I’ve been really busy this year with a few different projects, one of which (PopCap’s “Plants vs. Zombies”) is just about complete and set for release in May.  I had a lot of fun working on this project because the game itself is so creative and funny that it proved to be a unique challenge coming up with music that actually matched the theme.  You’re basically defending your home from waves of awesomely ridiculous zombies using an arsenal of plants that each have their own flavor and personality.  It’s a tower defense game with elements of real-time strategy, so it appeals both to casual players and Starcraft-fans like myself.  And of course, George made it, so you know it’s gonna be awesome.  So about two months ago, after finishing all the in-game music and SFX, I decided that I wanted to make a funny theme song… I thought it would be awesome if the song was basically a dialogue between the Sunflower (the plant I’m holding in this picture) and the Zombies.  Once I was finished, I showed George and he said, “hey, let’s make a funny flash video to go along with it!”  So Rich flew down for a week, and everyone worked to put that together… it all felt pretty spontaneous, but I’d like to think that the result was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.  A couple weeks ago, the marketing team suggested we make a Japanese version as well, and being that I’m half Japanese, I decided I should represent.  So I translated the lyrics, and got help from my Dad to refine them… originally I was going to leave the Zombie lyrics (sung by George) in English.  But as I was going through the Japanese lyrics, I started mumbling them in angry-zealous Japanese and thought, “this is really funny… I bet my Dad could do this.”  So he came over and we recorded that while my mom played Twilight Princess downstairs… (and yes, she’s plays WoW and Animal Crossing).  I have one more quick story: I had to come up with a sound effect for butter hitting a head, so I made a bowl of oatmeal and recorded the sound of throwing a stick of butter into the oatmeal.  I wasn’t pleased with the result, and I thought, “this would be so much better if I had a real head to throw the butter at.”  So I asked George if I could borrow his head.  He knelt down by the microphone, and I threw the stick of butter at his head about 20 or 30 times… let me tell you… that is the best “butter hitting head” sound you’ll find anywhere!  And apparently, butter doesn’t wash off very easily.  So if you plan to do this, make sure you have plenty of time to shower afterwards.

Just in case, here is the English mp3 of the song:

Zombies On Your Lawn

Here is the Japanese mp3:

Uraniwa ni Zombies ga!

And here is the music video… Enjoy!