Vote now and help these 2 DC indie games get on Steam

Two locally-developed indie video games are currently part of Steam Greenlight, a section of the popular gaming site where Steam solicits help from the player community in determining which games to offer. The games are Dead Man’s Trail and Interstellar Invaders.

Interstellar Invaders, developed by Daniel Silber, is an arcade game where players protect their space cities from attacking ships. According to the game website, “It’s like Space Invaders and Arkanoid had a baby that was raised by Missile Command.”

Chris Totten’s Dead Man’s Trail, meanwhile, is an Oregon Trail-style survival game with a modern, zombie twist. “Each journey the player takes in Dead Man’s Trail creates different and varied undead drama that should not be missed.”

So how does the Greenlight process work? According to Steam, “developers post information, screenshots, and video for their game and seek a critical mass of community support in order to get selected for distribution.” But it’s about more than just winning a spot on Steam — it can also help games and developers find a following. “Steam Greenlight also helps developers get feedback from potential customers and start creating an active community around their game during the development process.”

D.C.-born games Tumbleweed Express and Dr. Spacezoo have already successfully passed through the Greenlight process and are available for purchase on Steam.

Totten told Technical.ly that Valve (the developer that runs Steam and came up with the Greenlight process) is pretty vague on what that “critical mass of community support” is, but the more people who say “yes,” they’d be interested in buying your game, the better.

That means it’s up to you, yes you, to help put these D.C. games on the Steam map. “We’d really like to drum up some local interest for our games and provide a good face for the indie game community in D.C.,” Totten told Technical.ly in an email.

Go check ’em out!