I built SQL Noir, an interactive detective game that challenges you to solve mysteries using real SQL queries. It’s fully open source, designed to give you a practical and immersive way to learn SQL while engaging with a narrative-driven mystery.
I like it! Very fun! Few ideas:
- The "submit" box isn't clear on whether it needs the name or the suspect id for the first case
- It would be nice to have a "copy to notes" button in the output
- It would be nice to have some docs on what functions are available / which dialect this is.
I think this very valuable, it's so much more easy to learn if you actually have a small project to work on
This is super fun!
One small thing which would be nice is the ability to just download the sqlite database myself so I could use my preferred application to query it, and just use the site for the brief, notes and submission.
Also a nitpick, while you say it's for "learning" SQL, I would probably expect something a little more guided, or at least some example queries, if the intention was to teach SQL. As it stands, if you don't know SQL you're probably going be completely lost as to what you should be doing. It's really cool, just not specifically as a learning tool.
A great addition to a field where there aren't many offerings: SQL Island (https://sql-island.informatik.uni-kl.de) and SQL Murder Mystery (https://mystery.knightlab.com) come to mind. The mechanism of SQL Noir is close to that of the latter, i.e., an undirected, essentially standalone adventure. I myself am working on SQLab, a SQL game engine that allows you to augment an arbitrary base with exercises on that base to produce directed, standalone adventures: https://github.com/laowantong/sqlab. You download a dump of the database (currently MySQL, SQLite, Postgres), and can play under any administrator interface. On the same page there's a link to the long police investigation I designed for my (French) students. If you're a teacher or researcher in the field, the principles of SQLab are explained here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.16120.
Great project, totally agree! Also further great projects posted here. I'll chip in here my project of an SQL Game Console that comes with a SQL Game Editor -- allowing students to build their own SQL escape game in the browser: https://eskuel.de . It's been fun trying this out in the class room (only available in German right now). Example game: https://eskuel.de/zoo/
This gives me a childhood flashback to a show called MathNet, an educational police procedural (a la Dragnet) where both investigators have holstered calculators.
and there were infamous hackers too
Taking advantage of an extra that wasn't charged to the customer?
Ah, that's a classic "use after free" vulnerability.
I cannot even tell you how many glorious memories this brings up! Thanks for a walk down memory lane.
Love this! The style is unique and awesome.
I see the beginnings of a really fun way to learn / practice / remember SQL.
A few notes:
- Would be cool if it was a single workspace (no tabs). Was constantly switching tabs back and forth.
- Saving previous SQL queries and results would be cool. I was copying results into the notes. Feel like this is important as things get more complex.
Excited to see where you take this!
Good notes indeed. I have just implemented a side by side view so that you can view 2 tabs at once. I hope this helps. Also as other users suggested you can use the notes for saving queries but you can also comment them out in the editor.
I love the updates! Side-by-side is great, the graph view is great. Awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing.
> - Saving previous SQL queries and results would be cool. I was copying results into the notes. Feel like this is important as things get more complex.
I imagined myself with my flip notepad at the crime scene taking notes every time I'd copy queries/results to the notepad section. All I needed was a hat, and then say "just the facts, ma'am" a couple of times.
I like that way of thinking about it!
The idea is good, but the UI is all but immersive.
Things that would it make more immersive:
- autocomplete
- and/or the ability to view the schema alongside the query (on a wide enough screen)
- a way to copy table and column names easily with a click (table names cannot be selected at all!)
- ability to just add more queryies under/over the already executed ones, instead of only being able to replace them.
Agree with all but autocomplete should either be a hidden feature or disabled by default since I think it takes away from the immersion as well forces you to recall.
Maybe enabled on a NG+?
Thank you for the suggestions. I have just implemented the following: - Side by Side view to open up two different tabs at the same time - Copy button to copy table names
Great job! I'm happy if I could provide useful feedback. I wish you luck, this is a fun learning tool!
Commenting out blocks of code with command-/ would be super useful as well
Wow what a great idea, I had fun solving the cases. I think maybe a comic version would help junior programmers. The SQL editor sometimes behaves strangely and does not allow correct writing. Thanks
The editor behaves weirdly when I try to add comments.
It's hard to explain, but you can reproduce like this:
1. Write several lines, for example:
select i.*, s.*
from interviews i
join suspects s
on s.id = i.suspect_id
-- select i.*, s.*
from interviews i
join suspects s
on s.id = i.suspect_id
-- select i.*, s.*
-- from interviews i
join suspects s
on s.id = i.suspect_id
Indeed. I think I just fixed this bug.
When I was in university, my instructor linked something like this for SQL practice (a crime solving minigame, just like this one).
I remember getting really into it, even going to the extreme of trying to find the most efficient one-liner solution.
Thanks for making this. I’ll be passing the torch by linking it to anyone interested in learning SQL.
This is pretty fun, I tried the two free mysteries and was fun solving them. One nit, would be nice if the SQL editor supported comments so we can comment out old queries before running new one so as keeping a history esp if we need to run the same queries again. Good stuff :)
You should be able to add -- and comment out lines of queries. If not, this is a bug that I will investigate. Also you can use the Notes tab to store any past queries and findings.
Hey!
Firstly - great work - one of my favourite games is Chronicles of Crime and this immediately made me think back to how I would've gone about investigating some of those stories using SQL.
w.r.t the comments - you can add `--` to comment out lines of queries but when I do it on two or more lines they get mashed into a single line and I can't reliably uncomment them again without the queries getting mangled.
I've found you can use multiline comments /* and */ though which worked for me - just a bit more back and forth on the keyboard.
Anyway - again - awesome work.
Thank you very much. That's actually a great suggestion. I completely forgot about that. As for the single line comments, indeed this is a bug, I'll try to fix it.
It works for the first line, but doing it on a second seems to make it merge lines.
Yep. This was a bug. I just fixed it.
reminds me of https://mystery.knightlab.com/
An honorable mention. This was in fact my inspiration for creating SQL Noir.
Really cute. But I really want the ability to put the different tabs -- Brief, Workspace, Schema -- side-by-side. I know SQL and wanted to play with this, but the UX was frustrating enough to drive me away, even though it is really pretty.
+1 to this. Remembering the schema is kind of a big barrier when you're just jumping in, and that's when you want to be able to explore at random the most.
(I also struggled with the schema because crime_scene was singular and suspects was plural!)
I agree. I also wish it was possible to run multiple queries in the same window e.g.:
select * from crime_scene;
select * from suspects; SELECT
cs.*,
s.*
FROM crime_scene cs
FULL JOIN
suspects s ON cs.id = s.id;
Yes! I just implemented a "Side By Side" view that will enable you to view 2 separate tabs side by side. Only on Desktop.
That's a good suggestion. I'm not sure if screen real estate won't be a problem though.
Maybe modeled after browser dev tools. Big display at the top, small repl at the bottom with a dragged to resize. Also tab structure and the “menu” are chewing up a lot of vertical real estate for two classes of data most users won’t see as separate.
The schema ui seems to be big because of the graph display… which is not at all done baking yet. The hard part of displaying graphs is the pathing, and the very first one I opened has an arrow coming from the left, going across the mode, and attaching to the right side. In a perfectly horizontal line. That’s gonna need to cook a lot longer. It it worth having a bad vis over having no vis?
Just implemented it. Looks really nice on Desktop. Nice and compact.
This is really lovely. It makes me happy that you invested time into building this for other people.
On case #4: select * from phone_records where caller_id= 11 or recipient_id = 11
The results header is screwed up, there is an extra 'id' column. At least on firefox.
Something is weird in at least firefox. Type or paste:
select \*
from crime_scene;
select \*
from crime_scene;
--
select ----from----------------
Thank you for pointing that out. Will look into it.
This is cool! Great job! I completed the first challenge.
I guess I’m used to sql server management studio I tried running multiple queries at once and wasn’t able to. I also tried writing a comment with two dashes to keep track of the id’s and it replaced most of my query with dashes. It might have something to do with being on mobile on iOS.
Thanks for pointing that out. I just fixed the single line comments. It should work as expected now.
Awesome thanks! I’ll give the second challenge a go
I just shared this with folks, it looks incredible! I’m giving it a try myself too.
By the way, I was trying to use a bunch of one-liner SQL statements to explore the data, and it seems like the editor doesn’t handle comments very well. Is there a way to make it work better?
Yep, comments are broken. Currently working on a fix.
Feature request:
Badges for completing challenges.
Issue Closed, Won’t Fix.
Badges?? We don’t need no stinking badges!
I'm a big SQL noob, so I barely know what I'm doing, but... I managed to crash both Firefox and Edge whenever I ran this query:
select * from crime_scene, suspects>select * from crime_scene, suspects
This is a cross-join. It is the equivalent of a nested loop in programing and almost never what you want to do in a database unless you like watching high-combination data spewing out and CPUs burning. It gives you every combination of items in each table you name.
What you want is to find something in two or more of those tables that can be linked together somehow using (very likely!) "INNER JOINS". Look into examples or tutorials of those on the internet and use what you find to work through the tables on the "investigations". Luckily, the SQL Noir site tells you exactly the steps to take in the first case. You need to find a link somehow between the crime_scene and suspects tables and then another one between the matching suspects from the suspects table and the interviews table.
Note: there is no direct easy link between the crime_scene and suspects tables. You will have to use your investigation skills to trim the suspects list down.
Great fun, thank you for building this! Was confused since submitting the confession didn't work, would make sense to ask for the name of the person no?
That was fun! One question, is there a way to execute the current hovered/selected query and not the first on in the workspace?
You can try commenting out the first query with -- and running it like that. I have not implemented yet the ability to run multiple queries.
I like it, looking forward to new cases.
On case #004, even though I found the killer by occupation and the confession. Person 57 does not give me any clue about a Lamborghini, as the solution text mentions. Is there a bug, or what did I miss?
Nice work. Just what I need to train the non-tech ppl in my team. Wish more things were fun to learn like this.
Oh this is perfect. I was just looking for exercises to practice my SQL, and detective games are my jam.
This is so much fun! I’m going to play this with my kids ages 6, 8, 10, and 12. Thank you for your efforts!
How do you make money doing this and if you earn nothing, how can you afford to in this economy?
hobby--noun--An activity that one enjoys doing in one's spare time.
The bitterness is palpable.
Glad you asked. I don’t want to put a price tag on it because I believe everyone should have access to learning for free. The right to learn shouldn’t be behind a paywall. That said, I’ve added a ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ link for anyone who wants to support the project. No pressure, just an option!
I solved all of them. Minor nitpick: Since every criminal confesses to their crime, the fastest way to solve most of these is to query the confessions table for strings like '%i did%' or '%kill%'.
Haha. You found a cheat code I guess. I would have to think of hiding the answers from plain sight for the next cases or adding some more rows that include these specific strings.
That's how I solved #3, still trying to reverse-engineer the correct solution.
Isn't that the reversed method? You mean you're now trying to solve the crime the normal way instead of jumping to the last page of the book first?
Hmm it still feels apt, reverse-engineering anything is effectively starting at the last page of the book.
So much fun! Looking forward to more complex investigations.
haha this is such a cool aesthetic! nice work.
education needs more stuff like this - less matter-of-fact regurgitation of information (which ai does an okay job of anyhow) and more creativity.
Just wanted to say this is awesome! sent it to a few coworkers
Fun! Nice work and will be great to intro newbies to SQL
When I click on SQL Workspace, I get an error:
> Failed to load database Can't find variable: WebAssembly
Oh wow. That's strange. What browser are you using?
Safari, with lockdown mode enabled.
this is awesome! soooo fun. Thank you for building this. Sharing it immediately
What a great idea!
This is very nice, thank you for making it.
tables: crime_scene, witnesses, interviews, suspects. one of these is not like the others.
I've seen it advised to list table names as plurals as it holds more than one of the things. I've been told plural is dumb. I've not yet run into mixed plurals and singular table names. Sure, it's a style, but pick one???
I'm guessing this is like tabs vs spaces, but would a tab person use spaces randomly or vice versa?
otherwise, it's a fun way to kill some time. clearly, i played with it long enough to notice this little bitty bit of something. however, if only modern police departments had this ability to link clues. there's no way to drip donut cremes or spill coffee on these notes
Thank you for pointing that out. During the creation of the cases I did not take much consideration on naming the tables. I will either make all of them plural or singular.
congrats!
I'm on mobile, so maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand how youbare even supposed to get started without knowing SQL. If this is supposed to teach SQL then there needs to be some tutorial to guide the way.
Some games require reading of the instructions before playing. Not all games are Candyland or Chutes&Ladders simple. Sometimes you need a bit of basic knowledge gathering to play the most basic levels of the game.
There's also plenty of ways to teach. Some methods assume a basic level of the concepts involved, but by continuing, you'll be exposed to new concepts that level up those skillz. Just like how arithmetic comes before algebra comes before trig comes before calculus.
Querymon is a more tutorial-like SQL game:
Agreed, but there is a suggested query to get you started at each step.
[dead]
[dead]
> - The "submit" box isn't clear on whether it needs the name or the suspect id for the first case
I think it's implemented to be general, they wrote what to submit in 'Objectives' section though. For me as a user, I deduced that they wanted "suspect" name, after all, this is a detective game.