Image: Id Software

Id Software might be on life support, but their classic games are doing better than ever. Ever since the release of Arcane Dimensions over a decade ago, Quake has been undergoing a spectacular renaissance, fueled by an ever-improving community pool of tools, textures, enemies, and weapons. Over the weekend, the community flexed once more with the release of the Rooftop Jam, a community collab based on a simple one-word prompt, resulting in some of the most spectacular levels the game has seen in its 30-year lifespan.

Being a community jam, what you're getting here is 19 one-shot adventures all based around the theme of rooftops, each one by a different creator. That means that you're going to get a huge range of architectural styles and experimental ideas, but they're all still going to play like Quake, give or take. The Rooftops Jam is also built on top of Arcane Dimensions, which adds a mountain of new enemy, weapon, and item types to the mix, so don't be surprised to fight some enemies you've never seen before.

The maps here are hugely varied. One is clearly based on Mirror's Edge, focused on bunny-hopping parkour between rooftops over classic Quake combat. Another is a whimsical Quakeified New York City night scene, with silly billboards for 'Quad Damage Performance Boost' and 'Spiky Dale's Crucifyin' Nails' hanging over the action. I especially like Mermaids In The Basement, a level set in a half-sunken town, strange faces carved into the walls of houses, and the streets an organically tangled mess of connections.

The hub map is a particular work of art. An ornate and pleasant garden built around a wizard's tower, the entrances to each level sitting on the neighboring rooftops, but you begin in the study, a cup of tea on the table, a low-poly cat sat beside that, and a colossal, impressively detailed dragon skull hanging from the glass skylight dome above. The days of Quake just being about brown and grey dungeons and castles (and the occasional grey-brown future base) are well and truly over.

As usual, modding older games does require a little effort on your part, but it's well worth it as the community has created so, SO much over the years. You'll need a copy of Quake, obviously (heavily discounted at the time of writing), and either the Ironwail (slightly more popular) or VKQuake (slightly more features) engine, which allows modders to go far beyond the game's original limits on map size and detail. Follow the included instructions - mostly unzipping the engine and making sure a copy of your ID1 directory from Quake is in the same place.

Once you're done with that, you can unpack the Rooftops Jam to its own directory - I'd suggest RooftopsJam. If your engine of choice has a mods menu, you can launch Quake and launch it from there, or hit the ~ key to open the in-game console and type 'Game RooftopsJam', for example. And away you go. Start and dig in. Be warned, you might have to take the stairs. And once you're done, if you're looking for more community projects to play, you can find plenty more over on the community hub site Slipgate Sightseer.