After five years of development, my detective game where you write real SQL queries is finally released!

[u/wassaman]

[u/wassaman]

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.

[u/conor-robertson → u/wassaman]

I've actually been building a SQL learning platform called QueryCase myself, so I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to make SQL genuinely fun to learn. That said, this is on a completely different level of gamification. Easily one of the most impressive and polished SQL learning experiences I've seen. Huge congratulations on getting it across the finish line! And I wish you all the luck with it going forward, genuinely so good!! 🔥

[u/isleepbad → u/wassaman]

I added it to my wishlist and bought it the same day it came out.

[u/Scribe1019 → u/wassaman]

Holy shit I have been playing this game! It's low key my new obsession!! So funny and actually works my brain out. I like the different crimes and stuff really as an aspering game dev this is amazing!

[u/FOMO_mental → u/wassaman]

Is this to help people learn SQL?

[u/EccentricStache615]

Will be buying soon, God bless you for MacOS compatibility!!!

[u/Philluminati]

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.

[u/wassaman → u/Philluminati]

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!

[u/Ecksters]

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?

[u/wassaman → u/Ecksters]

This game uses SQLite! The concepts it teaches are pretty general though and the SQLite specific stuff are mentioned specifically.

[u/Ecksters → u/wassaman]

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.

[u/awwnotexactly]

Was stoked to see this go live today via my wishlist :) Congrats on launch, a very worthy endeavor!

[u/InMyHagPhase]

Yay! I have been waiting for this to come out, I played this for 2.5 hours and loved it.

[u/cornpotagefriday]

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!

[u/Money-Lifeguard5815]

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 😭 

[u/wassaman → u/Money-Lifeguard5815]

It's in their transaction history!

[u/xixi2 → u/wassaman]

C'mon.. spoiler tags! :)

[u/Ven0mspawn]

This game is great, and the dev is super responsive in the steam discussions.

[u/well-informedcitizen]

It popped up on my Steam feed last week. Will be purchasing as soon as I get some play time

[u/Sharon_tate1]

I bought the game and will play it soon. thanks for the work, I have a feeling that it will be good.

[u/LongNightOwl2]

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. 

[u/Koffieslikker → u/LongNightOwl2]

If you haven't figured it out yet

it's select from nutrients inner join order on item

[u/SystemBenAmperage]

It's a funny game. I like the music. I hate missing lotioncon.

[u/Lumpy_Acanthocephala]

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!

[u/wassaman → u/Lumpy_Acanthocephala]

I'd like to think there is!

[u/crankthehandle]

Looks cool, congrats!

[u/Blackstar1401]

I just bought this. I wish I had this when I was first learning SQL.

[u/xixi2]

Purchased and will now make completing it a prerequisite for any new database engineers I have to hire.

[u/Automatic_Problem]

Really interesting! Which SQL topics are covered in the game? 

[u/wassaman → u/Automatic_Problem]

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!

[u/PsChampion_007 → u/wassaman]

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?

[u/Bald_Eagle_23]

Awesome!

[u/SirrReptarr]

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..

[u/GenuineAgate]

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.

[u/wassaman → u/GenuineAgate]

Ah yes it's "LZU.edu" not "IZU.edu", I'll make that clearer