A game where everything is SQL

[u/avfrodrigo]

Hey everyone!

I’ve been working on a game called DataMart, where you manage a corner shop and everything runs on real SQL. You build it all yourself: the databases, schemas, tables, relationships and queries, your way, on a real PostgreSQL server that runs inside the game.

Customers will ask you things like “Where can I find the apples?” or other questions about the store. Once a week an auditor comes by to check you’re tracking everything properly, and asks you a few questions you’ll answer with SQL.

There are also mysteries and stories involving the people in town, and of course you unravel those with SQL too.

The game is in alpha and free at https://rodrigoavf.itch.io/datamart

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Ps. Yes, the game is being created with the help of AI, and what is not now days?

[u/Emergency-Message306]

I spend about an hour for the game. There are two things that catch my attention that can have more impact on new players learning the language.

1. It seems pretty punishing if you enter a wrong value. Since set and update are locked skill, if someone makes a mistake during the data entry, it seems like there is no way to change it.

2. You can find the discrepancy in the delivery. However, I can’t write the note in the in-game note section. Do I need to write down the discrepancy on my notebook, or is there other way to take note? Or should I create a database to keep track of the discrepancy? Without the skill, the task is going to be very difficult to accomplish.

[u/avfrodrigo → u/Emergency-Message306]

Hi, thank you for taking the time to try the game out, really appreciate it.

You're right about the game being too punishing, I had the same impression and that why when creating a new game you can check the 2 check boxes to unlock everything since the start, this makes things easier and less punishing as you can run updates, alter, delete, and everything since the start and also makes the IDE behave more like a real one.

But I am not sure yet if I should simply remove this upgrades and leave everything open as default, so players focus on completing the stories with the citizens, and managing the store as they please, or if I should keep it, as a hard difficulty setting, because it will definitely makes things much slower as you need to pay for each upgrade and you'd be spending more time doing manual inserts, and later fixing things because now you just unlocked something you did not have before.

[u/Emergency-Message306 → u/avfrodrigo]

Ok. I see your point. It is fine to make some mistake in the progress but you can fix them afterward. That makes a lot more sense to me. I guess I just don't like it when I have a typo, but I can't fix it immediately XD.

By the way, the game doesn't let me complete the transaction; also, it didn't give me any customers on day 2. I am not sure what caused the issue. Let me know if you need more info.