Plants vs Zombies is a tower defense video game where the player's goal is to prevent zombies from reaching the house. The lawn is divided into a grid of squares, with the player's house on the left. Players plant different types of plants on each individual square of the grid. Each plant has a different defense style, such as shooting, exploding, or blocking. Each type of zombie has its own special behaviors and weaknesses when encountering certain plants.
At the beginning of the level, the player has to choose the plants to grow in that level in a limited amount through seed packs, and to grow them must use a currency called "sun". The player collects sun by clicking on suns that randomly fall on the lawn or by certain plants that produce suns, such as sunflowers or sun mushrooms. After planting a tree, it will take a certain amount of time to be able to plant that type of tree again, each different type of tree will have a different recharge rate. If the player wants to destroy a planted tree, they can uproot it with a shovel. When a zombie approaches the left edge of a lane, the lawnmower will trigger a clearing of that lane's zombies and can no longer be used in that stage; if another zombie reaches the end lane, the player will have to restart the game screen.
