👉 Play Poly Plants now: https://liubai01.itch.io/poly-plants

📝 Share your thoughts (seriously, I’m begging for your input!): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-F2HKwD1PKx8dLHcASp6sC0YjBq_eh3YIOPv0KaDkwDze8g/viewform

Ever since I first played Plants vs. Zombies, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of blending its iconic tower-defense charm with the thrill of rogue-lite progression. What if you didn’t lose all your hard-earned resources after a run? What if every playthrough built toward something bigger—even when you stumbled? Today, I’m stoked to share my answer—and my first ever game: Poly Plants Defense! 🎮

The wildest part? I built every single feature with ZERO CODE. To be honest, I am a three-year experience Unreal engine programmer. When I start this program, I choose react.js to make this game only because it is friendly to AI. I am shocked by AI prototyping speed.

I have a lesson here: google AI studio not support pull code from github repo, which means you could not interfere games locally. So I switch to cursor later.

You’re not just clicking plants from above—you’re the Guardian, running around the lawn to keep your defenses alive! Sunlight drops from the sky and zombie corpses, but you’ve gotta sprint over and grab it manually (no auto-collect here). Head to the shop zone to buy seeds, carry ’em to an empty grid spot, and plant ’em yourself. When your Peashooter or Cherry Bomb takes damage? Dash over and hit [E] to heal it. Out of sun and zombies are swarming? Punch ’em with [E]—your fists are a last-resort weapon! Plus, every 60 seconds the map flips between Day (slow zombies, sun drops, time to build) and Night (fast, swarming zombies, no sun—survive by repairing and meleeing). Between levels, you’ll navigate a rogue-like campaign: pick power-up cards, hit up a black market (with random discounts!), heal at bonfires, or tackle risky random events. And the game-changer? Your sunlight carries over between runs—save up to unlock stronger plants, and turn every “failure” into progress toward dominating the horde.

You could also buy card from royal armorer

Core Design Philosophy

1. Active Participation Over Passive Observation

Traditional tower defense lets you place units and watch—we wanted you to be there. Every action has a cost: running to collect sun means leaving a plant unprotected; repairing a damaged shooter means missing out on extra seeds. It’s a constant scramble between managing your economy and putting out fires (literally, sometimes).

2. Day/Night Cycle: Two Games in One

Daytime is your “build phase”: slower zombies, sun drops from kills, and time to stock up on plants and fortify your grid. Nighttime is pure survival—zombies move 50% faster, spawn twice as often, and no sun drops. It’s all about improvising: repair plants, punch zombies, and hold out until dawn.

3. Roguelike Campaign Structure

Victory in one level is just the start. Navigate a branching map with:

• Card Selection Nodes: Pick 1 of 3 permanent power-ups (faster movement, cheaper plants, extra HP)
• Black Market Shops: Spend sun on upgrades with random RNG discounts (50% chance for 60% off!)
• Bonfire Rest Stops: Full HP recovery before tough fights
• Random Events: High-risk, high-reward—free cards, extra sun, or tricky penalties
• Elite Battles: Optional hard modes with big rewards for skilled players

Whether you’re a PVZ diehard, a rogue-lite fan, or just curious to see what a zero-code first game can do—give it a shot. Every playthrough, every survey response, means the world to me. Let’s grow this little project together! 🌿✨

Human Part!!

Okay at last, to be honest, most of stuff above is generated by AI, here are some human stuff(haha):

I am a guy with proud that only human makes great game. But recently, the development of AI changes my mind so I would like to start a project and demo to try that generates most of stuff by AI. Up till now, I have not written one line of code even though I know how to do.

I am interested about two topics:

1. in the future, which part of the game dev should be accomplished by human and which part of the game should be human part.

2. How to make an editor AI friendly?

Since I am a UGC editor developer as for my job. My boss recently asks me to embed AI feature in our editor. But the progress is slow. At the same time, Unreal engine as most cut-edge engine, most of its dev could not be fully automated by AI. I found the problem. It is that: when assets in your game cannot be described and defined by markup language. AI could not efficiently deal with that. Most assets in game engine designed initially is in binary to save space, but is a barrier for AI. AI at least now, takes structured words as input most efficiently. That make React.js a good choice to make small 2D game. So, if most of your game is not binary, then it could be efficiently developed by AI.

As for this project, one part of it is genuinely my dream to make a Rogue PVZ. Another part is a great experiment of AI. I wish it could be my first success to be polished as a complete product, to rescue me from office, and to be an indie developer someday.

Great thanks to anyone who reads here. I am not a native English speaker. If there is some weird expression, hope you could pardon me.

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