DayZ fan's free 2D tribute now hosted by Bohemia

A free fan-made DayZ tribute, MiniDayZ, has been picked up by Bohemia Interactve and hosted on the publisher's official website.

MiniDayZ re-imagines Boehmia's popular survival sandbox as a top-down 2D experience with retro-styled graphics.

The main difference is that MiniDayZ is currently single-player only.

Otherwise, you'll be kept busy with the familiar tasks of survival - scrounging resources, being mistrustful of fellow survivors and running away from zombies.

MiniDayZ is the work of a Russian DayZ fan named CannedBits, who has been developing the project since back in the spring and subsequently caught the attention of DayZ creator Dean "Rocket" Hall.

"I have to say, I absolutely love MiniDayZ," Hall wrote on the DayZ Reddit last night, in a thread commenting on the game's release. "I think it's awesome, amazing, addictive, and brings something really new to the experience.

"Ignore the haters," he continued, referencing a few fans with complaints about MiniDayZ's current stability. "The vast majority of people think it's fantastic and I am one of those people."

It's unclear what relationship Bohemia now has with the game's developer, but MiniDayZ already has a spot on the publisher's official forum - in a section reserved for "Bohemia Interactive games".

Head over to Bohemia's site to give MiniDayZ a try. The game will work in Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera.