Vaudeville Preview: The AI Questioning To Nowhere

Have you ever thought about asking in-game characters a question that was on your mind? Did you ever feel your limited conversation options were stifling? What if you could ask anything you wanted to get the answers you need? That’s the premise of Vaudeville, an AI-powered detective game that lets you talk with characters in real-time. Murders have occurred in the titular town and it’s up to you to ask the right questions to bring justice to the victims.

As a concept, Vaudeville is interesting. Having characters respond to your prompts and questions is enjoyable, giving you a great level of control. It actually feels somewhat organic since conversations don’t always start with the same responses. Unfortunately, the game’s AI runs into frequent confusion and doesn’t respond the way you like. Getting any information is difficult when even the AI can’t get its stories straight.

It’s nice to see the current attempt and give the game a try. But there’s a lot of polishing that needs to happen for this game to truly shine. Right now it’s a fun way to play around with a basic AI chat system. But solving the actual mystery is frustrating, especially when the AI takes you for a longer loop than regular ChatGPT.

Vaudeville is in Early Access on Steam, available for 19.99 USD.

Story – Three Victims, Three Murderers

Vaudeville begins with Detective Martini, a sucker for hard cases who is assigned to the murders in Vaudeville. Three citizens have been killed in seemingly unrelated crimes though the M.O. appears to be the same. By checking in with the police and talking with the townspeople, Detective Martini must piece the mystery together.

This is a mystery game not unlike titles such as Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE. You don’t have an immediate list of suspects or any clues to start. Asking the police and the coroner for clues is your first task, but you must explore the town of Vaudeville for more hints. Every character has their perspective on the murders, with the murderers trying their best to hide their involvement.

Vaudeville is shaken by the murders and you must help.

There’s nothing complex about the story as it’s no-nonsense. You aren’t investigating side stories or poring over seemingly related case files. It’s just the three murders and you must find out who did it. If you aren’t interrogating someone or interested in the advances of AI, there’s not much to do. More story content can arrive in the future but right now you can only investigate the three murders.

While some characters have interesting backstories, they don’t add much to the characters themselves. You don’t feel or see any interesting quirks that are hard to separate from the AI. There can be an engaging mystery to solve but right now it is limited to finding the murders. That leads to the game’s double-edged sword: its gameplay.

Gameplay – The Power Of AI

The main attraction of Vaudeville is the AI powering the characters. Except Detective Martini which you control, everyone’s conversation is generated on the spot. Your main goal is to find clues and establish suspects by talking to townspeople. Your input dictates what the responses will be. This works to the game’s advantage because you aren’t locked into pre-generated responses.

Some games like While We Wait Here give you pre-determined choices which shape a character’s personality. While there is a lot of variation depending on what you choose, you can’t respond how you like. This is especially notable in games where you don’t want to talk and think the other character is taking you lightly.

The Coroner is surprisingly hard to talk to.

The freedom to decide your own conversation starters and respond how you like is freeing. If you think there’s a lead given what a character has said, you can pursue it. Think the best way to start a conversation is starting with light conversation? Go for it. Thanks to the AI, the NPCs actually respond to what you say and it feels like having an actual conversation.

Having an organic conversation with the power of AI is nice at first, but the novelty wears off quickly. The problem is two-fold; the NPCs don’t seem to respond well to your initial inputs and they have contradictory information.

Communication – The Limitations of AI

It’s nice to speak to characters with the freedom of saying whatever you like. There are several catches which expose the limitations of the AI. The first is the AI isn’t always able to recognise what you are saying. What you say is acknowledged by the characters but they often don’t care or don’t actually respond to what you are saying. This makes you feel like you are getting ignored or are trapped in a looping conversation.

There are also instances of the AI giving contradictory information and not realising or acknowledging that fact. This makes getting information extremely difficult. For example, talking to the police chief and the coroner gets you a different set of names. Both the chief AND the coroner insist they are correct, which prevents you from getting anywhere.

It’s hard when the AI doesn’t want to talk about anything else.

Talking with the NPCs also results in lots of stalling as the AI tries to understand your question. The result is something that doesn’t sound natural and breaks the immersion. It’s okay to repeat what someone else has said a few times. But when the AI always leads with that, it ruins the idea that you are naturally talking to someone. There are instances where this doesn’t happen, but it’s not frequent enough to maintain the immersion.

There are plenty of opportunities to improve and it’s not impossible to figure out who the murderers are. However, the process is more exhausting than intended and quickly becomes frustrating. The concept is great but it’s not there yet, and it shows the obstacles that the game has yet to overcome.

Audio & Visuals – Vaudeville Is Soulless

The town of Vaudeville looks drab and gloomy, setting up the mood and the atmosphere. The character visuals look alright though they aren’t the most expressive. You can look around and possibly find other characters to talk to, though it’s not easy to know how to look around. The primary downside is the audio.

Listening to the town’s ambient noise sets the mood but listening to the characters breaks the immersion completely. The computerised voices sound lifeless and unnatural, even if they do pronounce words properly. It doesn’t have a hint of emotion which easily reminds you that you are speaking to a computer.

Vaudeville was previewed on Steam with a code provided by Bumblebee Studios.