Pep's Detective Deep Dive - Game 5
Intriguing concept, absolutely abysmal execution.

Vaudeville is a murder-mystery game in which, theoretically, you unravel the mystery through AI-generated conversations that you have with the characters. It's an interesting concept for a game, with the AI-driven nature adding an element of unpredictability to the proceedings. Unfortunately, current levels of AI conversation generation aren't advanced enough to stop this being anything other than an absolute mess. An unintentionally hilarious mess, but a mess nonetheless.

As "Detective Martini" (yes, really), my first task was to visit the police station and get the lowdown on the three victims. The chief (a generic Unity model looking vaguely cop-like) gives me the names of the victims and locations of the murders, as well as the names of some potential witnesses for me to talk to. I ask about one of these witnesses, an Old Man Jenkins, and the chief tells me he'll mark his location on my map. I go back and check my map... nothing. Hmm. I go back and ask the chief to mark it again. He does. Nothing. Wondering if the game was bugged (as it was the day before when the morgue wouldn't unlock) I went to the developer's Discord server and asked about it...

... turns out Old Man Jenkins doesn't exist in the game. The chief just made him up. AI is the future, right guys!? If the character that is supposed to give you all your basic information about the case is inclined to make up random bullshit then how am I supposed to trust anything anyone says!?

I know that detective games are supposed to have an element of deceit, but the AI of Vaudeville doesn't seem to have enough restrictions put on it to prevent it from doing it's best to just block progress completely. It's like the game actively wants you to fail, and since the developers seem to be leaning into the "streamer-bait" marketing strategy I don't see them making the game any easier to navigate. I threw in the towel after asking every character to show me how to get to Cabane Violette, a location that exists in the game because I can clearly see it in Sandbox Mode. Even after the coroner said she would mark it on my map, it still wouldn't unlock, so I've decided not to waste any more time.

Even away from the frustrating AI, the rest of the game is just... ugly. The intro consists of a Powerpoint-esque slideshow of ugly AI art with an ear-grating, 1940s-style AI voiceover spouting overly flowery bullshit about the city of Vaudeville. The UI is basic and not well-designed, and some of the character scenes absolutely tank the FPS despite how simple they are. The map of the city? You guessed it, AI art. The assets are all, I assume, ripped straight from the Unity store, and the AI voices are practically text-to-speech, they're so robotic. And none of the characters talk like normal people. Every sentence they spout is intentionally as elaborate and fleshed out as possible... apart from one character, whose bluntness is almost refreshing. Just tweaking the AI so they talk like normal people would already be a big improvement to the game.

Any positives? Uhhh...
Any time the AI would freak out and start talking about unrelated stuff was pretty funny. Mrs. Potter telling me her husband had died but not knowing how he died also made me laugh. And attempting to breach the impenetrable wall that is Monsieur Saxabar was honestly kind of hilarious.

This needs a lot of work to get it anywhere close to an enjoyable detective game. If you have to, just watch any of the streamer compilations floating around on Youtube or Twitch. At this point, it's not deserving of your time or money.

Next up: Case of the Golden Idol

Terrible in every single way. The game starts with ugly AI generated pictures supposed to represent the town of "Vaudeville" presented to you in a early power point like fashion making you wonder if this is supposed to be a joke. Then as those ugly pictures fill your screen your ears are greeted with an AI voice describing "Vaudeville" the same way astrologists describe how your day's going to be based on your sign.
The game itself runs bad, has hideous models that are just stolen unity assets and don't even fit the vibe the game is trying to go for.
The story is non-existant and the gameplay as well, the only way you can have fun with this is if you're twelve and think that a robot saying untoward things because it misinterpreted you is funny.