If you don’t follow the DayZ community closely here’s something you might not know. One fan has been coding a project for the last seven months that is essentially DayZ but in a top-down fashion, with updates going onto his Tumblr. Now it’s been made officially available by Bohemia on their store.

Russian fan CannedBits has been working on the project known as MiniDayZ and has coded in the typical DayZ experience – spawn with nothing, scavenge for something, shoot zombies, watch your back for your fellow survivor. Of course, it’s not the full experience that DayZ offers. A top-down is very different from an MMO after all.

The initial reception on the DayZ community subReddit has been a little underwhelming though, and CannedBits seems disappointed in this saying that “I see mostly overhyped rage here… “Its really sad, that people get mad from free stuff.”

DayZ figurehead Dean Hall was full of praise for the game though saying of it “I think it’s awesome, amazing, addictive, and brings something really new to the experience. I’m so glad you’ve been able to make it even better!”

To get a copy of the game you need to register an account on Bohemia’s site after which you can visit the studio’s store to pick up a ‘free’ copy of the HTML5 coded game. Otherwise head over to the experimental servers for the DayZ game proper where amongst other things it’s now possible to be a cannibal… although not recommended if you have another option.