Sounds like my 25ish year old speakers finally died. So what GOG games can I play without sound until I buy some new speakers? I'm looking for things without spoken dialogue, many sound effects, or background music. I'm thinking maybe some VNs, maybe some platformers or puzzles games, old adventure games or RPGs, maybe the Spiderweb RPGs. As I look through my list of games the only thing that really jumps out at me is the Incredible Machine series.

I always play Settlers 2 Gold without sound on any machine I've played it on, mainly because (being a dos game) the machines sound card is hardly ever listed in the games setup program, so have given up running it, and make do without sound. I find it a much more relaxing game because of it, especially when playing late of an evening.

Chess

Zork if you're up for it, or the old Kings Quest and Police Quest games? Though come to think of it the latter did have some music courtesy of the PC speaker.

Lords of Midnight

Doesn't have any sound at all. And neither does the sequel, Doomdark's Revenge.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a classic that does not have voice acting. It only has music at a few scenes and some sound effects at selected occasions, which do not impact gameplay at all.

But those blips and blops are important! I simply cannot imagine playing commander keen or bio menace without the blips, blops and ti-te-te-te-te-te whooo-whoo-wip's

Tales of Maj'Eyal

And quite a bit of those kind of RPGs, like ADOM or the Spiderweb Software ( Avadon, Avernum, Queen's Wish etc) games.
I mean if it's "can I?" in the sense that you won't have harder time playing.

You can even play We Happy Few without sound for a while, even though you will certainly need sound in some bits in that game, but not in all.

Older management sims like Theme Hospital and RollerCoaster Tycoon, turn-based strategies like Civ or Heroes of Might & Magic, and I suppose pretty much any adventure game that you can enable dialogue text in.

High quality, expensive loudspeakerrs may be worth it to have them renovated if you have someone near you who builds loudspeakers on a small scale. I once took a pair of loudspeakers to get repaired and it cost the equivalent of a couple of hundred of dollars so not worth it unless new would cost the double or more, I would say. I am lucky to have a small scale loudspeaker manufacturer near me.

Icewind Dale 2
I don't think IWD2 had any necessary sounds that didn't have text instead?

Pretty much any 4X strategy (Civilization, Alpha Centaury). Sound there is just to create atmosphere, all information is brought to you via graphs, maps and charts on screen.

The old Zork and the old Sierra games are also on sale right now. What about games where spoken dialogue is optional, voiceovers mediocre or sounds and background music terribly annoying? ;)

Are you sure your loudspeakers are broken and you do not just need to fix bad contacts? Maybe resoldering in your amplifier? Maybe removing oxide on your cables or loudspeakers' contacts? Simply removing and reinserting and tightening the screws just fixed the crackling in my loudspeakers. Modern solder does not last long at all so more likely your amplifier needs resoldering or replacing.


Turn based strategy works well but real time strategy not, unless you replace the warning sounds with lamps lighting up behind your monitor or so.