22 Jan 2026Developer post

New Performance & Stability Update [1.3.0]

In our quest to bring the offline LLM to as many machines as possible, we have just released a new update (1.3.0) that dramatically increases the range of compatible hardware the game can run on. In particular, we focused on systems that struggled the most after the previous upda

11 Jan 2026Developer post

Vaudeville Priced at 7.99 While Featured in Steam Detective Fest

Starting today and for the rest of this week, Steam will celebrate the crime genre with the Steam Detective Fest. What more fitting chance to highlight a game that has brought ground-breaking features to this kind of game? Throughout the week, the game will get a monster discount

21 Dec 2025Developer post

Vaudeville Story Vault on Steam Workshop

Today we launch our biggest update ever : a completely reworked game flow that allows for modular world-building, scalability, countless future feature additions, and gives users control over content creation. The Vaudeville Story Vault (VSV) will be home to many new adventures,

Today we launch our biggest update ever: a completely reworked game flow that allows for modular world-building, scalability, countless future feature additions, and gives users control over content creation.

The Vaudeville Story Vault (VSV) will be home to many new adventures, including official stories from the developers and partners, as well as user-generated content.

Included with the latest release of Vaudeville, you’ll find the brand-new Editor (VSVE), accessible by clicking the Workshop button in the main menu. From there, you can access different functionalities, ranging from creating your own stories and submitting them to the Steam Workshop, to running adventures locally or sharing them privately with friends through our .vsv file format.

We look forward to seeing the Vaudeville community’s contributions, whether they’re new and engaging stories, casual character interactions, or goofy, meme-worthy moments.

Current Features

Offline editor that allows every user to easily create their own stories
Fully modular character and location creation using Vaudeville assets
Complete freedom to determine character responses and behaviors
Easy deployment and updating of Steam Workshop items with a single click
.vsv file format for easy private sharing

Current Limitations

Maximum of 1 character per location
Only actor and location assets from the original game story are available
Limited generative AI customization

Future Plans

The engine will serve as the foundation for the next installment in the Vaudeville series (with retro-compatibility features)
Modular actor generator to add custom-created character models to the game
Location exploration, with the ability to add clues and other audio-visual elements to scenes
Multiple characters in the same scene
Functionality to upload user-generated content (UGC) to stories
Fully customizable generative AI parameters to fine-tune the gameplay experience

Vaudeville Story Vault: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2240920/workshop/

QUICK START GUIDE

Click on the Workshop button to access the VSVE.

Select Create New Story.

General Tab

You will start in the General tab.

Workshop Info: Enter information about the item. This does not affect the story itself; it only sets the public description shown in the Workshop.
Common Rules: Specify rules that every character will follow when replying to the player. This determines how strict or loose their behavior will be. Writing in the second person (e.g., “You will / won’t…”) is the most effective approach.
Time Period and Location: These are self-explanatory. The location refers to the general setting (a city, country, or fictional world) where all characters exist, not their individual locations.
Common Knowledge: Information that every character in the world knows. Use this to establish the setting, backstory, and main plot.

IMPORTANT: Never add information that you don’t want characters to reveal, neither here nor in the Knowledge tab. AI is very bad at lying, so if something must remain secret, do not tell it to the character at all.

Characters Tab

Move to the Characters tab and create a character by pressing Create New Character.

The main text field should be self-explanatory. Again, write using the second person, as suggested by the placeholder text.
Use the Goals field to express what urgency or motivation the character has toward the player. For example, if the character is a police chief seeking help to solve a case, make that clear here.
The Actor dropdown determines the character’s appearance, chosen from existing Vaudeville universe actors.
Additional options will become available once you’ve created locations and knowledge entries. We’ll return to these later.

Locations Tab

Open the Locations tab and add a new location using the button in the bottom-left corner.

The text fields are self-explanatory. Follow the placeholder examples for optimal results.
The Template dropdown determines which existing Vaudeville scene will be used as the backdrop.
Locked at Start determines whether the location is visible at game start or must be unlocked through dialogue. At least one location must be unlocked in order to publish a story.
In the keyword field, add words that allow characters to unlock the location.

Example: If you add “coroner” or “autopsy” as keywords for the Morgue, the location will unlock when a character mentions those words. You can add further instructions in the character description, such as:

“If asked about the autopsy report, tell the player they can find it at the morgue.”
“If asked about the missing jewel, reply that you don’t know anything about it.”

There is currently no hard limit on the number of locations, but more than 15 may clutter the map screen.

Knowledge Tab

In the Knowledge tab, define pieces of information that can later be assigned to characters.

The Name field is for reference only and has no gameplay function.
The Description field is what truly matters. Use the placeholder text as guidance.

Assigning Knowledge and Locations to Characters

Once you’ve created enough locations and knowledge entries, return to the Characters tab.

Location: Where the character is currently situated.
Can Unlock Locations: Select which locations the character can unlock when prompted by the correct keywords.
Knowledge: Assign relevant knowledge entries to the character.

Accusations Tab

The final tab is Accusations.

List all questions the player must answer correctly to solve the case.
The Name field is for reference only; Question is what the player will see.
Add answer options using Add Option. At least one option must be marked as true.
There is no limit to the total number of options, but only up to 16 will be shown at once. These include all correct answers and a random selection of false ones.
You can change to order of the questions using the Move Up and Move Down buttons
Answer order is randomized at runtime.

Publishing Your Story

Once all tabs are complete, return to the General tab. Here you can validate, test, or author your content.

When you’re ready to distribute your adventure to the Story Vault, press Export to Workshop. The story will be published and should become publicly visible within a few minutes.

Original post

21 Apr 2025Developer post

Eye of the Summoner Launches on Steam May 16th

We are happy to announce that Eye of the Summoner , a unique dark fantasy tower defense game, will launch on Steam for Windows, Linux, and Steam Deck on May 16, 2025 . Originally created by Bumblebee Studios during Ludum Dare 55 , Eye of the Summoner has grown into a full-feature

03 Oct 2024Developer post

Vaudeville Offline Beta

Hi Vaudevillans! We’ve been silent for a while, which led some to speculate that Vaudeville was dead . But we’re happy to tell you that is not the case at all . As you know, we are a small team, and when we’re hard at work, we don’t have much time for chit-chat. We prefer to focu

Hi Vaudevillans!

We’ve been silent for a while, which led some to speculate that Vaudeville was dead. But we’re happy to tell you that is not the case at all. As you know, we are a small team, and when we’re hard at work, we don’t have much time for chit-chat. We prefer to focus on delivering results rather than making promises. So, finally, we’re back with an announcement, and what an announcement it is!

As you may remember, about 15 months ago, we at Bumblebee Studios created a sensation by launching Vaudeville, the first detective game with AI-driven characters. To achieve this, we used a third-party online service called Inworld, which has been great. We’ve had a good collaboration with them and are satisfied with the results so far. However, there are downsides to relying on a third-party tool: high service costs, the need for an internet connection, the risk of outages or sudden discontinuation, and, most importantly, the fact that the service is like a black box to us, unpredictable and impossible to fully customize to our needs.

Now, brace yourselves, because we’re breaking new ground again! Today, we are thrilled to announce the availability of our very own offline beta version of Vaudeville, built with LLMs, text-to-speech, and speech recognition models, all fine-tuned, prompted, and implemented to run locally by us.

The most immediate benefit you'll notice is that you no longer need an internet connection to play the game. None of your in-game conversations with characters will ever leave your device, ensuring even stronger privacy. With this innovation, we are building a better and more reliable Vaudeville. But the best part is yet to come: in the long term, this will allow us to develop more advanced features, create new functionalities tailored to our game design needs, and introduce fresh stories—not only in the Vaudeville and detective genres but also in entire new universes!

As of now, the new offline version of the game is available in the beta channel on Steam, ready for testing and feedback. The current online version will continue to run in the main channel for some time until we’re fully satisfied and ready to promote the offline version to the top spot. To try it out, simply right-click on your game, select Properties, switch to the Beta tab, and choose "Beta" from the dropdown.

We’re still optimizing the game, both in terms of gameplay and performance. Running LLMs locally can be quite demanding on your GPU, and we’re working to improve that. During this phase, our goal is to replicate the same experience offline that the online version provided. Expect bugs, strange character behavior, long loading times, and possible crashes on some systems. Once we’ve ironed out these issues, we’ll move on to the second phase: enhancing the game even further.

We hope you’re as excited about this development as we are and that you appreciate our commitment to growing Vaudeville. Stay tuned, there might be more big news coming soon!

Cheers!

Bumblebee Studios

PS: Only the Windows version has been tested so far. We know for sure that the game crashes regularly on the Steam Deck an we are working on that.
PPS: Give us your feedback and report your bugs in the ⁠vaudeville-beta channel. Thank you!

Original post

19 Apr 2024Developer post

Vaudeville Enhancements

Hey Vaudeville Community! We’ve got some thrilling news and updates to share with you all today. Vaudeville Enhancements! We’re always looking to improve your experience, and in our latest update, we’ve made two major changes: Improved Voice Acting : We’ve upgraded the voices of

14 Mar 2024Developer post

Steam Spring Sales 2024: 60% Off On Vaudeville

'Sell the kids for food, weather changes moods, Spring is here again' Fear not, you don't have to part with your offspring to snag a copy of Vaudeville because now it's available at an incredibly low price! Prepare to dive into the immersive world of Vaudeville, crafted by Bumble

31 Jan 2024Developer post

A Pre-Mortem for Vaudeville

To mark the 7-month anniversary of Vaudeville's release, we decided to write a retrospective of what has happened so far. Not really a post-mortem, one of those essays you write after the game's development has been completed and wrapped up, because Vaudeville is alive and kickin

To mark the 7-month anniversary of Vaudeville's release, we decided to write a retrospective of what has happened so far. Not really a post-mortem, one of those essays you write after the game's development has been completed and wrapped up, because Vaudeville is alive and kicking, still in Early Access and still evolving with daily efforts from us and the community. We won't be done with the project until we have achieved our vision.

HISTORY

Vaudeville started as a prototype when we read about a company, Inworld AI, on the Unity Asset Store that offered a service to create AI-driven NPCs. The prototype worked well, so we decided to turn it into a full game. The goal was to get to market as quickly as possible and be the first to release a game based on conversational AI, and we did that. And when I say "we" I mean the company, but actually Bumblebee was a one-man team at the time. Anyway, "we" were so quick that we also beat Inworld AI themselves, who were working on their own implementation of a crime game called Inworld Origins (we didn't know about that, to be honest; we had been living under a rock during the whole development of Vaudeville) and released it a month after us.

RECEPTION

The game started to generate interest straight away, also with the help of content creators we were able to reach through our partners Lurkit and Keymailer, but the real breakthrough came when MoistCr1TiKal picked it up semi-randomly and started streaming the game, driving hundreds of thousands of users to our Steam page. Other top streamers followed suit: HasanAbi, WillNeff and Videogamedunkey were among the first.
User reception has been very polarised. Initially, there was a lot of excitement, with the few negative reviews mostly focusing on technical issues. Users flooded the Discord channel and started analysing the game together in our chats. Their feedback was invaluable in improving the game, as well as helping us resolve some temporary technical problems.
With the increasing popularity of AI techniques, their development and rising expectations, the games have started to receive negative reviews regarding the limitations of the AI, despite our hard efforts to improve the game. Unfortunately, this polarisation of opinion has had a negative impact on the Steam ratings, which are evenly split between enthusiasts and haters, resulting in an average rating that is likely to deter many potential buyers. It's hard to calculate the impact of the reviews on sales, which have been around 7,500 so far. What we do know is that people are still buying the game and there are many (around 13,000 outstanding wishlists) who are still trying to make up their minds, perhaps waiting for the game to leave Early Access or for the reviews to improve.
It's also worth noting that none of the major video game press has written about the game yet, probably because of its early access status, but that's strange enough, given the interest the game has generated. Perhaps this is because there is no big publisher pushing the game .
By the way, we stand by our decision to self-publish the game and do the promotion, releases and all that goes with it. We might have made a lot more money if we had, but in the end, we think it was worth it to retain our independence.
We won three awards: 2nd place at the Game Development World Championship GCore Cloud Award and two Gold Winner Awards at NYX, one for Best Innovation and the other in the Indie category. There are at least two research papers in progress on Vaudeville (we cannot disclose them until they are published), and we think that this is extremely cool.
Today, Vaudeville is a use case on the Unity Asset Store (the same asset store where everything started) and on the Inworld AI website. We are being contacted by companies and individuals who want to work with us. We are very proud of what we have achieved thus far.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

The biggest challenges were using a cutting-edge technology that was still in its infancy and relying on an external API. The former meant that the outcome of the chats and the playability of the games were not 100% predictable for us and partially out of our control. That's why we opted for an early access release, because we really needed the community's feedback to help us fine-tune the AIs. The latter caused the temporary issues mentioned earlier, leading to the service being unreachable on several occasions, most notably the night MoistCr1TiKal streamed the game and hit all the caps. The issues have now been resolved and the service has been stable for months.

COSTS

We have managed to keep costs under control so far, which is not to say that it has been cheap. In the first month we generated a huge amount of traffic, which resulted in a substantial bill from Inworld. However, the costs were still manageable compared to the Steam revenue. It is important to note, however, that Steam payments are delayed by a month, so if you are going to venture into this kind of business, make sure you have a buffer. Fortunately, the people at Inworld have been kind enough to delay their billing for a month, making payment easier. They also changed their pricing model immediately afterwards, making it fairer and more affordable for most users.
Another recurring cost is the usage of DeepL to translate the dialogues to and from 12 different languages in real time, which has been working great for a reasonable price.
We also tried to use a more advanced online service to generate the AI voices, but had to revert to the old ones due to the unsustainable cost. We hope to find a more affordable solution soon, maybe an offline one.

DEVELOPMENT AFTER EARLY ACCESS

We have worked tirelessly in the eight months since Early Access to deliver improvements, sometimes daily, often weekly. These are some of the most appreciated features: we improved the AI and the content, translated the dialogues into twelve languages, developed the story mode, improved the interface, developed a Linux / SteamOS (Steam Deck Verified) version, implemented full game control support, added a new character, improved the 3D environments, increased accessibility, added achievements and community items.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

As we have said before, we are committed to developing Vaudeville until we are completely satisfied with our efforts. This means that while we continue to improve the game's features and fix as many bugs as possible, we will slow down our work on the final version of the story a bit to try and understand how we can work with our partners to make the AI's behaviour more reliable and the game more enjoyable.
Then, we will need to take a break to do something else. Probably a more casual game with a smaller scope, just to reset our brains and not get overwhelmed by Vaudeville before we start creating new content or new iterations of the game.

BUMBLEBEE STUDIOS' GROWTH

Since the release of Vaudeville, Bumblebee has grown from a one-man, part-time studio to a team of two full-time developers. From a tiny company to a self-funded studio capable of standing on its own two feet. Our goal is to continue on this path. We are convinced that a small studio like ours, driven by its passion, can withstand the crisis the industry is going through and even thrive in this stormy weather.

LINKS

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2240920/Vaudeville

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wePxGlJ5nY0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAqnrLrfWGQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw51fkRiKZU

Vaudeville's Discord: https://discord.gg/2scPgBMkaq

Bumblebee Studios: https://www.bumblebee-studios.se

Vaudeville on Keymailer: https://www.keymailer.co/g/games/85436eda

Vaudeville on Lurkit: https://www.lurkit.com/campaigns/quests/vaudeville

Unity Asset Store AI Hub: https://assetstore.unity.com/ai-hub

Inworld AI on Vaudeville: https://inworld.ai/case-study/ai-npcs-helped-an-indie-studio-get-300000-in-free-publicity

Original post

14 Jan 2024Developer post

Story Mode is Live!

These changes have been simmering in the Beta Channel for a few weeks and are now ready for an official release: New Game Mode: Story Mode The player starts with only the Police Station available. Detective Martini must unlock other destinations through conversations with charact

21 Nov 2023Developer post

Is Vaudeville the most innovative game in years? We think so

If you've had a chance to experience "Vaudeville" and its unique approach to NPCs and narrative, you might share the feeling that there's something special going on there. The way these AI characters respond and adapt genuinely stirs something that feels a bit like the future pee

31 Oct 2023Developer post

Vaudeville Now "Steam Deck Verified"!

Today, Bumblebee Studios is thrilled to announce that its innovative noir detective game, Vaudeville , has officially been verified as suitable for Steam Deck . This accolade confirms that players can now enjoy an optimised experience of Vaudeville on the go with Steam Deck's por

28 Sep 2023Developer post

SteamOS and Linux version / New Backgrounds (1.12.4)

Native Linux and SteamOS support Improved controller compatibility Performance & usability improvements Three reworked environments: Police Station Morgue Country Club

21 Sep 2023Developer post

Vaudeville is a finalist at the Game Development World Championship

Vaudeville is a finalist at the GDWC (Game Development World Championship) for a Gcore Cloud Award for the best use of Cloud Services in game operation or mechanics. The award ceremony will take place in about 5 hours (8 AM PDT / 11 AM EDT / 16:00 GMT / 17:00 CEST / 18:00 EEST) a

15 Sep 2023Developer post

The best is yet to come!

Hey Vaudevillans! It's been an intense few months since this game went from being an interesting niche Early Access title to an internet sensation overnight. It happened on the 15th of July when I was travelling with my daughter on a train from Germany to Italy very early in the

Hey Vaudevillans!

It's been an intense few months since this game went from being an interesting niche Early Access title to an internet sensation overnight. It happened on the 15th of July when I was travelling with my daughter on a train from Germany to Italy very early in the morning. I opened the Steam stats page and there was a huge spike in sales and dozens of new people on the Discord channel. They explained to me that a very famous streamer was playing our game right then and had been doing it for hours and loved it. And then another big streamer followed, and another...

Watch on YouTube

After a few hours, the game was so popular that the servers that host the generative dialogue service were overloaded and stopped working. At that point, Bumblebee Studios was basically me, Simone.
There were people who helped me with various tasks from time to time, but it was still a one-man team. I spent the next 24 hours trying to reach the service provider and answering people on Discord. Most of the users were very understanding and had very kind words for me, but the sour reviews had already started to appear on Steam.
You know the rest of the story: it all worked out in the end, so here we are.

Over the last two months, we have been working hard to consolidate both Vaudeville and Bumblebee Studios. There is a new partner in the company and new collaborators, to be announced soon, who are already working to improve and add content to the game.
Some of the updates released since the Early Access launch include the on-screen notebook, smarter characters, improved performance and stability, compatibility with DirectX 11 and Vulkan, connection error handling and support for 12 languages!

But we still have a long way to go before we leave Early Access. Thanks to the incredible support of this community and the fresh ideas of the new team members, we have big plans for the future. Look forward to improved graphics, new environments and characters, expanded and alternate storylines, more music, improved usability and accessibility, new features, and many, many other exciting improvements.

Thanks again for your support!

Simone Odoardi and the team at Bumblebee Studios

Original post

Updates & announcements

Current Features

Current Limitations

Future Plans

QUICK START GUIDE

General Tab

Characters Tab

Locations Tab

Knowledge Tab

Assigning Knowledge and Locations to Characters

Accusations Tab

Publishing Your Story

The time has come!

HISTORY

RECEPTION

TECHNICAL ISSUES

COSTS

DEVELOPMENT AFTER EARLY ACCESS

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

BUMBLEBEE STUDIOS' GROWTH

Hey Vaudevillans!

Thanks again for your support!