Open the file. Every clue is a query. Four investigations — streaming fraud, missing credits, chart manipulation, royalty theft — solved with real SQL, right in your browser.
Tutorials teach you to write a query. They rarely give you a reason to care about the answer. This does.
Chief Reyes hands you an investigation — streaming fraud, missing credits, chart manipulation, or royalty theft.
A real relational database, running in your browser. You write the actual SQL — nothing is simulated.
Hints are there if you're stuck, but the database only gives up the truth to the right query.
Earn XP and a badge, then move to the next investigation — with a few loose threads that don't stay loose forever.
You've just been hired as a Data Analyst at Halcyon Records. Chief Reyes doesn't hand out busywork — every case on your desk is a real problem the label needs solved: someone's numbers don't add up, and it's your job to find out why, with nothing but a database and a query editor.
"I don't need a dashboard. I need to know who did this, and I need it backed by a query I can defend in a room full of lawyers."
Built by a data strategy consultant who's spent years teaching SQL in live workshops — every case in this file is drawn from patterns real analysts actually get stuck on, not invented in a vacuum. Same architecture that powers Data Detective, the studio's first title.
Yes. Episode One — all four cases — is free to play, no account required to start.
No. The cases are built to work for beginners through intermediate — the game gives you enough of the schema and hints to reason your way to the query.
No. It runs entirely in your browser using an in-browser database — no backend, no setup, nothing to download.
Most players get through all four cases in about 45–90 minutes, depending on how much you lean on hints.
Free to play, right now, in your browser. When you're done — or if you get stuck — I'd genuinely like to know.
Start the Investigation — Free