Interesting read on how art design and game mechanics can replace dialog and back-story in games.
Be sure and read the comments — a lot of people down there found the article “wrong” and made arguments against what was written.
I don’t know whether the article as a whole is “right” but I think they made some good points about stuff other than words that can help tell the story.
Art design and game mechanics can tell better stories than dialogue, say developers | Polygon