Imitater

The Imitater is a potato spud artist which can mimic any plant other than upgrades or itself. It can be used to cut the recharge time of plants in half although it takes up a seed slot. It costs $30,000 to buy the seed packet from Crazy Dave at his store, Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies, making it the most expensive plant in the game.

Suburban Almanac Entry
Imitater

lmitaters let you use two of the same plant during a level!

"I remember the Zombie Wars back in '76," says Imitater in a raspy, old-man's voice. "Back then, we didn't have all these fancy peashooters and jalapenos. All we had was guts. Guts and a spoon."

*Note: to access the Imitater's Almanac entry you must click on the top left outline in the plants section.

Usage
After purchasing the Imitater, it appears on the lower right part of the plant selection screen in a new added box on the side when choosing your seeds. Selecting it brings up an overlay, asking which plant it shall imitate for the round. After selecting, it will take up a slot as the imitated plant in a melancholy gray. (Some versions, however, do not have the imitated plant a tone of gray, but a full-colored replica of the original plant.)


 * Note: The Imitater cannot copy upgrade plants such as the Gloom-shroom or the Cob Cannon without hacking. It also cannot imitate more than one plant.

thumb|300px|right

The Imitater, when planted, will appear as itself, but after a couple of seconds, transforms into its copied form. The copied form, aside from being in monochrome, costs as much and behaves just like the original plant. On the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad versions the Imitater is the same color as the plant. Imitated explosives will explode, and an Imitater Tall-nut can still take loads of damage.

It isn't necessary to choose the original seed packet as well, or to use the original version of the plant before using the Imitater version. There is no clear benefit to having only the Imitater or using it first; there is in fact a disadvantage to it, as the Imitater requires time to transform. Therefore, an Imitater can be eaten, crushed, or smashed by a zombie while transforming.

Imitater of Upgrades
We can have the imitated form of Upgrade Plants by editing saved file.

thumb|360px|right|Defense of the Imitaters



Strategy
The Imitater can be used to effectively halve the recharge time for the selected plant, assuming the copied plant was also selected. At the starting of a Survival: Endless level, use the Imitater to imitate a Sunflower to make your sun production faster.

Good candidates for Imitation:


 * Wall-nut
 * Tall-nut
 * Pumpkin
 * Squash
 * Sunflower
 * Sun-shroom
 * Jalapeno
 * Cherry Bomb
 * Doom-shroom
 * Potato Mine
 * Ice-shroom
 * Marigold (if gold farming)
 * Puff-shroom
 * Sea-shroom
 * Tangle Kelp
 * Coffee Bean
 * Starfruit (if playing Seeing Stars or trying to get Shooting Star)

The only disadvantage to the Imitater is the time it takes to transform. When placed right in front of zombies, they may eat it before it finishes transforming. This is mainly a problem when using it to imitate explosives and Hypno-shroom which are placed right into the middle of the group of zombies they're intended to destroy, and it also creates a problem when trying to use it as a last minute defensive plant, as it takes a regular amount of chomps to eat while it is transforming. It isn't impossible to use effectively, but there is a risk that it will be eaten before it explodes. Also a risk if you are using an Imitater Tall-nut it could get eaten before it imitates to a plant.

Trivia

 * The word 'Imitater' is actually misspelled. The correct word is 'imitator'. In the game it is spelled Imitater because "tater" means "potato" (this might be on purpose).
 * In the Almanac he says he remembers the zombie wars on '76' (1976, to be exact), obviously meaning there was more than one battle that zombies kept losing, since there are still humans.
 * The Imitater is the one of the only four gray plants in the game, along with the Spikerock, the Grave Buster, and the Doom-shroom.
 * The Imitater's statistics can be shown on the top left hand corner of the Suburban Almanac.
 * The Imitater, when flattened, will turn into the flat version of the copied plant with its original color, even before transforming.
 * On the iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad version, the Imitater turns into an exact replica, without the black and white color, although on the seed packet appears greenish.
 * The Imitater's sun cost ranges from 0 to 325.
 * The Imitater may be a representation of a mime, as it is black and white and wears a beret.
 * The Imitater is the only plant without any statistics in the Suburban Almanac such as Sun and damage.
 * This is because the Imitater will have the exact same stats as the imitated plant.
 * The Imitater cannot copy upgrade plants although the imitated plant can be upgraded.
 * However, you can imitate upgrades through hacks.
 * If an imitated plant is upgraded, it returns to the 'normal' color of the upgrade.
 * The Imitater is gray, yet the projectiles it fires are the exact same color as the original projectile.
 * Since the copied plants of the Imitater are not monochrome in the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad versions, the seed packets for the copied plants are different from the PC and Mac version. In the iPod Touch and iPhone version, the seed packets are shaded by a green square. In the iPad, the seed packet is shaded by a yellow square.
 * The Imitater is the only non-upgrade plant that is bought from Crazy Dave's Shop, excluding the Zen Garden plants.
 * The Imitater, the Cattail and the Gatling Pea are the only plants with headwear.
 * Besides the Flower Pot, the Imitater is the only non-Upgrade Plant that cannot be obtained for the Zen Garden.
 * The Imitater's transforming animation is not shown on the DS version. Instead, the Imitater when planted stands for a while, then spin quickly once and turn into the imitated plant with soil under it and a planting sound.
 * The Imitater is one of two potatoes in the game, the other being the Potato Mine.
 * When the Imitater has copied a plant, the copied plant is in full health, even if the Imitater has been damaged.
 * The Imitater forms are not completely grayscale, it just became whiter so a little color can still be seen.
 * On the XBLA version, in Co-op mode, the game will not let you pick the Imitater when there are already 3 seeds or more selected. A simple fix to this bug is to select the Imitater before you select more than 2 seeds.
 * It is the only non-aquatic plant that can go in water without a Lily Pad or go on the roof without a Flower Pot.
 * The Imitater's eyes look exactly like zombie's eyes.
 * If a Imitated plant gets squashed by a Zomboni, Catapult Zombie, or a Gargantuar, the squashed Imitated plant will be in color.
 * When an Imitater Chomper eats a zombie, the zombie's arm turns black and white.
 * In the iPad version, if you choose the original plant first, then open the Imitater overlay, the seed packet will darken as if it were not recommended for the level.
 * The Imitater is the only plant that can be planted on any environment: directly on the roof, in a Flower Pot, directly in the pool, on a grave, on a Lily Pad, on the ground and on another plant (Imitater Pumpkin and Coffee Bean).
 * When the Imitater is spinning, you can see eyebrows on his face. However, in the iPad version, it always has eyebrows.
 * While spinning, the Imitater looks like he has a lot of arms on his back.
 * The Imitater is the plant equivalent for Presto, a character in Insaniquarium. Just like the Imitater, Presto can turn into any kind of pet.
 * The Imitater is probably French.
 * The Imitater is the only non-upgrade plant that is not obtained on a level.
 * When the Imitater is spawning smoke and gets finished eaten, the smoke will not disappear when it has been eaten but disappears at the same rate as the smoke of a non-eaten Imitater.
 * It is the only known Plant that battled Zombies before the events of the game.
 * It is strange that the Imitater can imitate plants with more than one head.
 * It is possible that the Imitater just mimics a plant as he resembles a mime.
 * In an update to the Android version of the game, the Imitater's seed packet changed color when in the seed selection screen to gray, but in-game, it is still green and imitated plants are still full-colored.
 * The Imitater is one of three plants in the game that make a reference to another plant in their Suburban Almanac description. The others are Tall-nut and Fume-shroom.
 * Despite using the same seed packet background as the upgrade plants, the Imitater is not an upgrade plant.