Database Detective: Minor Crimes Division

Fun cases and a nice way to learn some SQL. Humor is silly and will be hit or miss for you, but the fake websites you explore are fun to explore. Another good entry in the "Fake OS" genre.

GOATED

This game managed to make SQL raise the correct errors and does not overload your screen with tables The logical thinking part takes up most of the game and the sql part just there to support it, so there will be no complex queries, and many approaches to a problem This game is very high quality for its price

Been such a pleasure playing this game. I love the art and whole experience. I never used sql before so its nice to learn. Good game to put your brain in work!

As someone who had self studied SQL and enjoys games a little too much. This is a pretty neat way to get a refresher on SQL while on my rest day. This is pretty enjoyable, a large part I believe is because the solution to each puzzle isn't to create an exact/precise query to solve the problem. Technically for all of these puzzles you don't even need a query, you need a suspect's full name as the answer, it's just that it would take ages to get the answer through brute force. You are not forced to re-create a query and are not told that your query is wrong, the game just lets you flex whatever creativity you have to write your own queries to help with solving the puzzle (while having a decent feedback for when your syntax is incorrect). Theres also a tutorial documentation ingame for beginners to SQL, so the product is pretty inclusive for both being a game and a learning tool. It scratches that same itch as when I get an idea (a goal) for a personal project and just go with my own approach to make something that works.

Puzzle games aren't my usual fare but I loved this one. The level of difficulty felt just right. Later cases are somewhat challenging but I tended to make steady progress without getting stuck or backtracking much. Even if you do get stuck the little moleman assistant in the corner appears to be surprisingly good at giving just the right hints depending on what you're working on when asked. Just be aware that while SQL plays an important role, much of your time (depending on your SQL skills quite possibly most of it) will be spent scrounging funky 90s style websites for clues. That's mostly fun, too, though a few usability improvements (alt-tabbing, more keyboard shortcuts, browser favorites, ...) would have been nice.

Been looking for games like this that introduce programming/technology concepts since I played "The Farmer Was Replaced". If you have any interest in learning sql this is a very worthwile game. It doesn't hold your hand in a good way. letting you make mistakes and go back and correct them. even though I haven't played through the entire game yet each case has felt unique.