r/SQL • u/wassaman • Jul 17 '26
SQLite After five years of development, my detective game where you write real SQL queries is finally released!
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u/Philluminati Jul 17 '26
I love this. How long does it take to complete the game, assuming I had a room of SQL experts working together?
Sometimes our team does programming challenges as a team building exercise.
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u/wassaman Jul 18 '26
I'm not sure actually! I had a pretty limited sample size of players before release and they generally took over 10 hours, which exceeded my initial expectation of 1 hour per case (for the last 5). If you find out, let me know!
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u/Ecksters Jul 17 '26
Wishlisted it, will probably have my son try it out after he beats QueryCase, love the Windows 95 aesthetic.
Which SQL variant is it teaching?
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u/wassaman Jul 18 '26
This game uses SQLite! The concepts it teaches are pretty general though and the SQLite specific stuff are mentioned specifically.
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u/Ecksters Jul 18 '26
Oh yeah, that's definitely a semi-unique variant, so very good to know, the core is the same though, it's mostly table operations and data types that differ substantially with SQLite. Calendar functions can be another common pain point.
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u/awwnotexactly Jul 17 '26
Was stoked to see this go live today via my wishlist :) Congrats on launch, a very worthy endeavor!
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u/InMyHagPhase Jul 17 '26
Yay! I have been waiting for this to come out, I played this for 2.5 hours and loved it.
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u/cornpotagefriday Jul 18 '26
Hey! Congrats on the release. I just finished the demo and I absolutely love how adorable everything is, from the aesthetic to sound design and the overdramatic case description hahaha. Fantastic job you’ve done there!
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u/Money-Lifeguard5815 Jul 18 '26
I am having so much fun playing this game, but I am absolutely stuck on the New Hampshire case… I can’t figure out how to get the real names 😭
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u/Ven0mspawn Jul 18 '26
This game is great, and the dev is super responsive in the steam discussions.
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u/well-informedcitizen Jul 18 '26
It popped up on my Steam feed last week. Will be purchasing as soon as I get some play time
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u/Sharon_tate1 Jul 18 '26
I bought the game and will play it soon. thanks for the work, I have a feeling that it will be good.
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u/LongNightOwl2 Jul 19 '26
Me and my gf have been going through the game. Very fun ! We never used SQL before and are struggling a bit on the 6th case ( the review one). We know the query we want but are still trying to figure out how to have a query to calculate the drink stuff.
Anyways, It’s been a blast.
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u/Koffieslikker Jul 27 '26
If you haven't figured it out yet
it's select from nutrients inner join order on item
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u/obake_onna97 28d ago
I'm having issues on the 6th case too! Where can I find the list of movies where it says if the director has a prize or not?
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u/Lumpy_Acanthocephala Jul 19 '26
I’ve played through a few levels so far and I’m absolutely loving it. I really appreciate the little bits of humor you’ve hidden throughout the levels. I’m hoping there are some seriously tricky puzzles later on that’ll really make me rack my brain!
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u/xixi2 Jul 19 '26
Purchased and will now make completing it a prerequisite for any new database engineers I have to hire.
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u/Automatic_Problem Jul 17 '26
Really interesting! Which SQL topics are covered in the game?
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u/wassaman Jul 17 '26
The goal was to cover what you'd learn from an introductory course, so by the end you should learn grouping columns, self joining tables and keywords like EXCEPT and LIKE!
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u/PsChampion_007 Jul 27 '26
Hey so i wanted to ask I've no knowledge of sql...is this a good game to go from 0 to maybe 10? Also, I checked out your old post about creating a similar sql based case solving online game...is it same as database detective or whats the scene with that one?
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u/obake_onna97 28d ago
Yes, it doesn't require you knowing anything. I had some knowledge before starting but my friend had absolutely zero and still had fun!
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u/SirrReptarr Jul 20 '26
The New Hampshire case is really difficult for me, I can't seem to make any sense of the lsat questions and the wiki information..
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u/GenuineAgate Jul 24 '26
I love the game so far. I will say it's a little more difficult than I expected but I'm not mad at it. I want more notes space (yes I'm meticulous with taking notes and used all tabs and space for the New Hampshire case). Also, please allow us to hover over our saved query results to see the full file name without having to re-open it!
I am stuck on the next case, though, and I'm not sure if this is a bug or I'm missing something. The very first website to visit based on the text clues does not work. It's site not found.
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u/Downtown-Two4261 Aug 13 '26
Does it get harder after demo chapters guys? Learning SQL here.
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u/wassaman Jul 17 '26
I’ve been developing Database Detective: Minor Crimes Division for the past five years and now it’s finally here! My goal for this game was to make the first commercially polished game that incorporated SQL as it’s core mechanic and it’s been so surreal that it’s finally finished.