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In plotge of all types, whether they are chuunige, kinetic novels, horror suspense, or mysteries, infodumps are ubiquitous throughout the VN world. Infodumping in and of itself isn't a horrible thing to do to the reader (as some people claim), but it is a tool that is often abused by writers who want to expound on their beloved world and its characters. First, the definition of an infodump is a scene with little or no dialogue where background information is provided without directly proceeding with the story. Infodumps can vary in size from as small as forty lines of narration to up to a thousand, depending on the writer and the subject matter involved. There are even multiple types, which I will describe here. The Lump of Infodump The Lump of Infodump (as I put it) is the most common type of infodump in VNs. In the 'Lump, a great amount of information, sometimes with brief bits and pieces of dialogue or character stream of thought, is provided in a single scene, interrupting the story. The 'Lump is the type of infodump most likely to drive people crazy, due to its tendency to create walls of uninterrupted text. When abused, it tends to interrupt and/or destroy the flow of the story, and I've encountered a number of games where a more measured approach to presenting the setting or explanations of the particulars of an event or the 'why' of an action would have been less monotonous. In fact, that is the big flaw of this type of infodump. It is almost impossible to avoid monotony with this kind of infodump, because all it is doing is literally dropping information on you. That said, infodumps often have a reason for existing that becomes clear in coming scenes, so it is not necessarily always a bad thing. The Scattered Infodump 'Scattered Infodumps' are a technique where the writer provides the information in smaller, more digestible asides throughout the story, as it becomes relevant. This technique tends to be received with less irritation and often goes almost unnoticed by the reader, because it doesn't go on long enough to disrupt the flow of the story. Unlike the 'Lump, it is less likely to be abused, though many writers who use it get into the habit of always using it, which can be problematic for those with an allergy to non-dialogue text, lol. The Flashback Infodump The Flashback Infodump is just that, an infodump provided in the form of a flashback instead of an aside. These often fill in the gaps in the motivations of characters or their upbringing, and their purpose is, 90% of the time, to reveal something that would have made things less interesting if it were revealed earlier. Flashbacks are often abused, though. They are common throughout VNs, with roughly 90% of plotge having at least one and 30% of all charage (in my experience) having one. They are a convenient method of revealing a character's past, so many games also use them for character development, particularly in heroine paths. The Prologue Infodump This is probably the least annoying of the 'obvious' infodumping and is a sub-category of the 'Lump. Some games, rather than dumping setting and character information on you mid-story, will instead infodump immediately after you start. This has the advantage of getting around the disruption of the game's flow that is inevitable with mid-game 'Lumps and providing background information without the writer having to remember to include it strategically throughout the story. This technique is, however, rarely used. Games that use it are rare mostly because if the first thing you see when starting a VN is a wall of text, most people will drop the game right then and there. Because of this, most games that use this are directed to a very specific fanbase or niche of the VN community that already has an established interest in the game in question. A few thoughts The reason I decided to make this post was because of a conversation I had with @fun2novel regarding infodumping in Bradyon Veda. In Bradyon Veda, infodumping is integral to the game's battle scenes (incidentally the discussion began with me giving examples of good battle scenes to him). Because the science-fantasy techniques being used by the characters manipulate matter and physical laws, there are infodumps built into the battle scenes, explaining what they are doing. Because of this, I noted that Bradyon Veda's battle scenes were an example of positive infodumping, because it was done in such a way that it enhanced rather than disrupted the telling of the story. Conclusion What am I trying to get at? Nothing, really. I just thought that people give infodumps a bad rap, when they have probably been infodumped without even noticing it.

Well, of course a prologue wouldn't work in a mystery horror story, but that's not what I was talking about. It's particularly meaningful for high-concept fantasy and sci-fi world that can be confusing to the player if it's not explained properly. Giving just enough context to make it comprehensible at the beginning, and minimize the need for infodumps when the action picks up pace is pretty optimal. In the case of your story, I simply think it could've done with a lot less info in general. I'd like it more being vague than just explaining the lore this way. That is a good point, but if you think of it as another method of "scattering" the infodumps to keep the complexity of the world without creating the walls of info in the middle of the story it should still be worth it. I also don't like encyclopedias if they contain information actually crucial to understanding the story – as you said, it can be cool for fleshing out your world, but it can't be a primary method. ...I might also be speaking from one specific trauma of an EVN with a world that was pretty much incomprehensible because of lack of proper exposition, and with encyclopedia which created more questions than it answered. A good prologue could've done miracles for that game.

Ds-sans is a British VN developer whose work I've been following since the times I started writing my blog, first being charmed by his free romance game Sounds of Her Love, (check out my review of it here). Released on Steam March 2017, this very tame and heartwarming, small love story was extremely by-the-numbers and rather cliched, but stood out through its solid execution and likeable heroine. Later, I’ve checked out this author’s first VN, Lost Impressions, which also proved enjoyable despite being something of a mess visually and including edgy story elements typical for many beginner VN writers – a rather standard amateur project, but showing traces of genuine talent. As you can imagine, I was quite interested in reading ds-sans’ first commercial VN, Chemically Bonded, announced and successfully crowdfunded in late 2017. It promised to continue the wholesome, romantic climate of Sounds of Her Love, but with a more in-depth, branching story and better production values – pretty much a product catered exactly to someone like me, who enjoys fluffy slice-of-life content in VNs over pretty much everything else. After a full year of delays, the game finally came out on November 2019, proving to be… Very much a mixed bag. But, what could go wrong with a concept this straightforward and such a promising background? Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

This is what they said 18 days ago. "Production should be starting very soon, so hopefully within a couple months" Think that is the most recent info we have.

Yeah, I think there are worse ways to do exposition than dumping it right at the start, and I know quite a few TV shows and movies that do this and are still quite good. It's just very hard to do in a way that keeps the reader invested enough that they remember the important information. As for the encyclopedia thing, I don't think reading an encyclopedia entry is worse than a wall-of-text dump or some character monologueing exposition, at least as long as it's not information that's new to the protagonist. Of course none of these options should be the primary way of expositioning, as imo a story should always try to tie every important piece of information to its characters' motivations or its themes or whatever makes sense through a scene where something actually happens imo, but if that's not possible or highly inconvenient, putting it outside the main text often is a better choice imo. Do you think this particular VN could have gotten a good prologue when the writers weren't able to write an encyclopedia that actually explains things?

I think infodumps at the beginning are rarely employed because there is no in-story-conflict yet readers can connect it to. At least to me they feel more like homework than useful information most of the time and I tend to get bored before the actual story even begins. A way of infodumping that's rather unique to VNs that can be rather effective is adding opportunities for expositioning outside of the actual story. For example an encyclopedia can be a good way of explaining things characters in-universe wouldn't talk about normally without taking you out of the story for too long. 428 utilizes this feature brilliantly, adding funny side stories to its exposition and even secretly setting up plot devices. VA-11 also has an approach I really like where you read news stories and internet boards inbetween story-sections (although admittedly it's used more for world building than infodumping).

Since this is a spin-off, it's fine to read it without any prior knowledge, but you might not appreciate the characters as much, and, as wyldstrykr said, some references will go over your head. I still think you should read the original trilogy first though, simply because it's awesome (or at least it was to me). Grisaia no Kajitsu is by far the best out of the three, but the sequels are still worthwhile reads, although they're not nearly as good as the first one.

If it flaws properly with the story, I wouldn't even call it an infodump. I think when people talk about those, they mostly mean the first kind you mentioned: just walls of information bringing the story to a hold for a significant amount of time. But for this reason, I kind of feel an infodumping prologue is underutilized in VNs. You can quite easily avoid putting clunky exposition in the middle of your game by explaining the basics of the universe at the beginning. Maybe devs avoid it because it's cliched to do a narrated introductions like that, but particularly in EVNs, I feel like a lot of storytelling issues and confusion could be avoided that way...

i think you dont need to read grisaia. you will only miss some references

The way it goes is if you're close range and not holding down the movement buttons but have already used the close range attack it will use the attack that is listed below it in the equipment menu and if that one is also used, the one below that etc. It can be rather helpfull once you get used to it since you can't use an attack again until your heat gauge has depleted anyway.

The only really challenging battle on normal is the final battle of Dive 2... the rest can be handled fairly easily if you have a good combo set up, with fairly minor adjustments for tactics on occasion. I won't make any suggestions on combos, because this game provides a decent array of weapons/attacks that can be stringed together in ways that suit your temperament. In my case, I used the basic sub-machine guns, homing missiles, and the grenade launcher the most.