Have you ever thought to yourself, "Quake is great, but it would be even better if it were a top-down action game"? Probably not, but if you have, or if you're interested because I brought it up, this new mod is worth your time for a moment... It's called Top-Down Quake, and that's exactly what it is.

Like any good mod, this one requires a bit of work before you can shoot, not to mention that you need Quake and the FTEQW engine to support the features this mod requires. The "topdownquake" directory of the mod is also located in the Quake directory.

Once that is done, right-click on the FTEQW executable to create a shortcut, right-click on the shortcut, select "Properties", add "-game topdownquake" (without quotes) to the end of the "Target" field, and do the following : (You can also run FTEQW.exe with the "-game topdownquake" startup argument, but if you plan to run the mod multiple times, it is worth the little extra effort to create the shortcut).

When Quake is launched with this shortcut, it will initially appear in first-person view, but right-clicking will change it to a top-down view. The default movement controls are the same as in the first-person perspective, and the map can be rotated with the Q and E keys. All in all, it's really well done: while there is no getting around the limitations inherent in such a dramatic change of perspective (you can still get shot by things out of sight or hidden behind buildings), you approach the game more slowly, at least until you can effectively run and gun from this new perspective, more cautious.

Also, if you get stuck somewhere, there is an escape hatch: holding down the right mouse button temporarily returns the game to first-person view, so you can blow past the nasty stuff the old-fashioned way.

Top-Down Quake is compatible with other Quake mods; according to mod creator Shpuld, you can find out how to make it work in concert with other mods on Github, and you can examine the source code.