Complete misrepresentation of what I said and yet you're still wrong somehow. Gameplay can tell stories and convey ideas and feelings on its own. Obviously art without meaning isn't worth anything. I just don't understand why people can't understand that gameplay can convey that meaning.
Sure, Hotline Miami has a story and uses text to explain that story but just like it would be a much lesser experience without the actual text conveying its ideas, it wouldn't be half the game it actually is without the gameplay helping as well. Anyone who's actually played Hotline Miami 1 and 2 understand that the reason its themes about needless and gratuitous violence and our ambivalence to the reasons behind it hit as hard as they do is because the gameplay makes gratuitous violence feel good as fuck without caring to give you the reason. You get less than half the experience of Hotline Miami by watching a longplay of it.
Really? VVVVVV's writing is what hooked you on the game? And the characters and rooms already are basically colourful boxes that are sometimes given details. It works because the gameplay loop of mastering rooms one by one is satisfying. Also, guess what, Yume Nikki has as little text as it could possibly have. The worlds are of course pretty but the game isn't a gallery of assets, they wouldn't matter at all if the gameplay didn't encourage you to poke through them and discover them. Also, fucking, tell me what Yume Nikki's story is. Tell me! I'd like to know.
Like, even though you're completely misinterpreting what I'm saying (of course games also need writing and visuals, just like a book needs a story and characters with structure on top of prose, thus the very clear and obvious metaphor you somehow missed) you still missed on the gotcha lol.