Since the 70s one of the best methods of storing and correlating data has been Structured Query Language, better known as SQL (or SEQUEL if you don’t want to be anachronistic); originally developed by IBM for the System R, it has since grown in popularity and become the basis for many careers in data parsing – it also isn’t too difficult to learn, which is why a video game proves the perfect launching point for your educational journey.
Database Detective: Minor Crimes Division is precisely that game, tasking you with taking action to apprehend criminals who have committed the most heinous acts, such as littering and putting pineapple on pizza – as you can expect, the game does hold its cards close to its chest for the later missions (no spoilers here!) but largely it retains a sense of humour to achieve its ultimate goal: to teach you the basic syntax of SQL in a fun and engaging manner through a simulated desktop.
This sadly brings us to our first major issue – putting entertainment and education together isn’t always easy; known colloquially as “edu-tainment” the genre struggles to achieve both of its goals at the same time, something Database Detective is also guilty of. In spite of an interesting and insightful introduction to SQL, there are many points in which the game tries to teach you one concept but doesn’t often require it, making certain functions seem less important than they are, becoming a game that is either entertaining or frustrating depending on how much you play and how well you can implement those ideas.
Your primary way of interacting with the different cases comes in the form of a set of data tables, all of which require you to parse data through a search function, which in turn only works through SQL queries – this means you will need to select columns, identify files and set the parameters as you go. At first these files are provided along with a folder of evidence, but as you progress you will also need to use the “internet” (a fictional version of our own world wide web if the air quotes didn’t make it obvious) to solve problems, find more data and ultimately name your culprit.
Each chapter comes with a corresponding page of the in-game manual which teaches a couple of core concepts, followed by friendly pointers on how to best use them. Even without the game wrapped around it, this information is useful for anybody wanting to learn how to write SQL queries – commands like ‘SELECT’ and ‘JOIN’ are taught alongside the basics of Boolean operations, as well as how to do something the eggheads among us like to call “maths”. After the first 3-4 chapters there tends to be diminishing returns on the information you get, with each subsequent concept feeling less useful in the broader objectives than the last – this isn’t to say it doesn’t come in handy, but simply that they hold less weight.
The first few chapters of Database Detective feel fairly easy as you learn the basics and navigate the ins and outs of the UI, but the game gradually raises the difficulty as you progress – partly to force the use of new concepts both in SQL and with access to the faux-internet, but also to challenge the skills you have learned. In some ways this works well, giving you scope to explore more freely and learn more about the world of the game, but it can also bring your enjoyment to a sudden halt – difficulty doesn’t feel gradual, but instead rises steeply as you are given access to more and more resources.
Once you have a screen full of tables that have been downloaded, compiled, compressed, deleted, rebuilt and ultimately distilled into their narrowest form, you will feel like you have successfully investigated something, though less in the sense of completing a puzzle and more in the sense of finishing the gruelling paperwork that comes afterwards – that isn’t a bad thing, the game is definitely designed with spreadsheet nerds like me in mind, but be wary if you’re going in blind.
Although I have promised no spoilers, I will add the caveat that if you were expecting a story with a solid resolution, you may find yourself disappointed – despite taking place in an intriguing world where spilling paint is an arrestable offence, the game only tends to explore on these concepts tangentially, as though the game itself and its world were joined by the narrowest sliver in a Venn Diagram – this doesn’t mean the writing is poor, it has an immense charm and a light-hearted comedic flair to it – but there’s not much room for resolution outside of arresting suspects (or innocent bystanders depending on how poorly you perform).
As it stands, Database Detective appears to succeed in being an interesting game as well as a seemingly solid educational tool, which begs the question: why does it still count as edu-tainment? The simple answer is that it doesn’t teach SQL interfacing fully – the game is great fun to play even in spite of some later challenges, but that only happens because of the amount of SQL you are actually taught. The most glaring issue comes in the syntax itself – for anybody familiar with coding (not just SQL, but languages such as Python, C++, HTML and BASIC) you will have been taught certain rules about how the code should be formatted – most have their own special ways to separate statements, but critically they all instill this as a fundamental part of learning the language.
Where some languages like HTML use markups written in angle brackets or separated by special characters to denote how something is read, most languages default to the humble semicolon; it would be easy for me to wax lyrical about how this delightful piece of punctuation, which was created in the late 1400s by Aldus Manutius – a renowned printer of Venice and owner of the Aldine Press, has changed the landscape of literature but more importantly we need to talk about its use in coding.
Semicolons and other such denoting characters like it are designed to mark the end of a statement, usually saying “this task has now ended, unless otherwise instructed the next task is not related”, something that SQL also uses but is notably absent from Database Detectives – this isn’t entirely a mistake however, as semicolons aren’t used as widely when writing queries, instead being utilised in commands that alter or edit the database itself. Sadly this raises an entirely different question: why didn’t the game teach us about editing databases?
The simple answer is that it isn’t fun. As a game about using rudimentary concepts to solve puzzles, the broader query terms and concepts can already complicate matters, scaring off people who may wish to learn SQL properly. As soon as you tell people to add a semicolon to the end of their searches, you’ve added an extra layer of work that distracts from the goofy story about catching criminals for petty things – the idea of including database management on top of that could easily turn the game into something less enjoyable.
Earlier I started that Database Detective fails to be a successful piece of edu-tainment, but its strengths lie entirely in entertaining the player – it’s true that it plays fast and loose with the rules of SQL, but if it manages to intrigue people enough to learn more through other resources, that’s still a success no matter how you frame it.
