Steam Games for Deaf people

[BonPhire]

So I full use of my hearing normally but for the last week I’ve had an ear infection and the treatment I’m using has rendered me deaf temporally (I’m fine). However as a big gamer I’ve found that a lot of the games that I love are not friendly to the deaf community. And so after not finding any thread like this I thought, hey might as well give back after actually experiencing being deaf and realising the uncertainty of buying a game not knowing if it’s friendly without the use of hearing.

Here is a list of games that I have finished that I can say (from playing it with hearing and without hearing) are fully playable/enjoyable* without the use of my ears. Please leave comments recommending other games if you are deaf, or have found the sound unimportant.

--L.A. Noir (Add subtitles, and clue hints such as a visual hint or a rumble hint (controller) and B/W mode just for the hell of it)
--Sleeping dogs (although it may get a bit hectic in combat without hearing it is playable and naturally provides tons of visual aids over other GTA like counterparts)
--Tiny and Big: Grandpa’s leftovers (Music is a big theme but the gameplay’s tons of fun)
--Proteus (art game, the 8-bit sounds add to the game but can you live without)
--Portal 1 and 2 (I did not play this one deaf but I don’t remember many or any sound cues in the game)
--Dear Esther (art game, subtitled)
--Poker Night at the inventory
--Payday the Heist (one of the few modern shooters where you can get by without sound)
--Mortal Kombat (or most side scrolling fighters)
--Little inferno
--Intrusion 2
--Hotline Miami
--Garry’s Mod (it is what you make it)
--Fallout 1 and 2
--English Country Tune
--X-COM
--DEFCON: Everyone dies
--AntiChamber
--Civilization V /Civilization series
--Any games that offer an “aural radar” or “sound radar” mod in their community (such as the Doom3 mod)
--Old School DOS shooters (Doom, Duke nuke’m 3D, Shadow Worrier) as the sound effects in the game were not as important as they are now
--Minecraft on peaceful or creative mode (only the sounds of caverns and mobs are important)
--Most Racing, Turn Based strategy, “Retro”, and Point and Clicks are fully playable without sound as a rule of thumb
--Avoid Stealth and FPS/Shooters as these games are structured around sound.
--Rhythm games are ironically fully playable without sound such as Audio Surf which I actually found super fun to play with my feet on the subwoofer, highly recommend it as I’m a big music lover (used to DJ) and not being able to hear music is a big bummer; however this awesome substitute you should try
--RPG’s (JRPG’s in particular) are fully playable due to much of the games being sub titled for language reasons.


If I did not include a game on the list I have either;
1) Not played it fully (ex. Super Meat Boy, Fez, Limbo)
2) Found a significant drop in enjoyment (ex. TF2, CS, (almost all FPS’s/action))
3) Or just flat out forgot it**

*not all these games are great games, read the review first.
**if you are deaf and would like some advice about a game I forgot, leave a comment and I’ll (or someone who has played it) can give you some feedback on it.

[Trua]

Wow very nice of you doing this. Although im not deaf. Thank god. I now this will be very usefull for people who have such disabilities.