Database Detective: Minor Crimes Division Review
No crime is too minor, no criminal too petty to escape the reaches of the JOIN.
To everyone building up a case to file allegations that I’m a stone cold nerd, I’m about to drop some deeply incriminating evidence. I’ll admit it, I had been highly anticipating the release of Database Detective: Minor Crimes Division, the investigation game where you track down petty criminals using SQL database queries. Not only do you solve crimes by digging into relational databases, the entire game takes place in a fake OS with extremely retro vibes, that will make you feel like you just got punched in the eyeballs by Windows 98, but somehow with a lot more cartoon moles. After playing it, I can confirm it’s a millennial data scientist’s fever dream. But I think it’s also potentially a fun, brain-scratching time for anyone who enjoys retro vibes and logic puzzles.
Database Detective, created by solo developer Thomas Hsu, kicks players off with an introduction to their new role. You have just joined the Minor Crimes Division at the Los Zorangeles Police Department, and, boy, are these crimes minor. The first infraction to law and order that requires the long arm of justice? Some spilled paint on the sidewalk. Your boss introduces you to this first case and to the types of database tables you’ll have available for your sleuthing needs. In this first case, at least, the table you’re given will look very familiar to anyone who has worked in Excel or Google Sheets. It’s a nice dabble to get your feet wet and get accustomed to looking for clues in the data.
Database Detective: Minor Crimes Division in Action
After the tutorial, your next case will introduce your primary tool for catching the culprits: SQL, or Structured Query Language. For those who aren’t familiar, I’ll give a quick, simplified explanation. SQL is a computer language commonly used by programmers and data scientists alike, to search through and update very large sets of data. Just think about how slow Excel gets when you have 1,000 or more rows in your spreadsheet. SQL can handle all that and much more, plus it can help you combine related data from different tables. If you’re not sold yet, then you’re just going to have to trust me that it’s very cool and useful (and can even be fun to use).
I feel I need to make one note about the game’s introduction to SQL, based on feedback from friends of mine who tried the demo with no experience working with relational databases. This may not be the best first exposure to using these tools. The tutorial does a temperature check of the player’s knowledge by having you find the culprit using the most basic of queries, but it doesn’t walk you through writing your first query step-by-step. This can make a big difference for someone who has never touched or learned about SQL before. And it pains me to say this because I do think this could be an incredibly cool entree to these tools for folks who are SQL-curious.
Going down the SQL rabbit hole
If everything in the above paragraphs was news to you, or sounded like gibberish, but you still want to give it a go, I recommend checking out some YouTube explanations of the basic concepts, or firing up the intro lesson in a free online course. The game is otherwise a fantastic way to learn and practice SQL skills, and there is a great in-game resource in the form of a “For Dummies” style textbook. It’s just missing just that little bit of handholding for brand new SQL users.
The first few cases are pretty straightforward and clearly geared towards getting players comfortable with writing SQL queries. At the start of each case, new evidence gets loaded into the “clues” folder on your desktop. In the early cases, that evidence contains everything you need to know in order to figure out what data will lead you to the culprit’s name. For example, you might get a photo of their ID card with their name smudged out, giving you their date of birth, eye color, etc. to use as the basis for your query. I found it relatively straightforward to figure out what to look for, which makes the beginning of the game a great starting point for players to focus on practicing writing SQL.
If The Roottrees Are Dead offers an experience that pretty accurately mimics real genealogical research, Database Detective is doing the same for forensic data science. The result is at times mind-bending, but often thrilling as you make breakthroughs that get you one step closer to solving each mystery.
By the fourth or fifth case I did start to wonder if the whole game would feel like a series of textbook word problems with a creative flair. Luckily there is much more depth to the gameplay as you progress. The cases shift gears from testing players’ SQL skills with increasingly complex queries, to actual investigations that require drawing connections between documents, websites and the data itself.
Once I discovered that websites (sometimes listed on documents in evidence, sometimes found as data logged in the tables) could themselves be sources for more data to query, that was when Database Detective started to fire on all cylinders for me. Suspects’ internet history logs point to websites with downloadable customer data that confirm or deny alibis. Tables of product order histories suggest food and hobby preferences that align with the criminal profile for the day’s petty criminal. If The Roottrees Are Dead offers an experience that pretty accurately mimics real genealogical research, Database Detective is doing the same for forensic data science. The result is at times mind-bending, but often thrilling as you make breakthroughs that get you one step closer to solving each mystery.
Database Detective: Minor Crimes Division Trailer
At a high level, the game teaches players the most important lesson of data analysis. Through gameplay that merges SQL skills and investigation of all kinds of “real world” sources, Database Detective shows that answers to the most important questions always lie outside of the data itself. What do we need to know and why? What does the data tell us about the people it’s describing? How might a person’s behavior in one aspect of their life relate to the data about a completely different aspect? The answers to these questions can’t be found in the data, but by understanding how the data relates to the world, people, and context that it came from.
Database Detective brought me something I’ve been craving from my gaming experiences: a really effective merging of my love of gaming and my love of coding and computer systems. For this reason, I think it’s more than just a great gaming experience, it’s an important one. We need more fun, low-stakes opportunities for people of all ages and experience levels to get their hands on programming tools and concepts. Much of our modern day society is built on top of systems like these, and giving all kinds of players a look under the surface just might inspire them to think critically about the data they generate, and to engage with these tools in their real lives.
Get to the point, girl
Emily’s Score: 7.5/10
Emily was provided with a review key of Database Detective: Minor Crimes Division by Thomas Hsu
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No Small Games is an indie game recap and review podcast brought to you by hosts Kate and Emily! They became friends while streaming on Twitch and bonded over their love of indie video games. In each episode of No Small Games, the two will discuss an indie game they both played independently. They’ll compare their experiences: the good, the bad, their most memorable moments of their playthroughs.
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