Frequently asked questions

A free, browser-based SQL game. You play a covert operative writing real queries across a story campaign, timed interview drills (the Proving Ground), and a live 1v1 Arena.

Yes. No credit card, no upsell, no paid tier. All game content is accessible once you sign in.

No. It runs in the browser. You need a modern desktop browser. Sign in with Google, or pick “Continue as Guest” to try it without an account. Mobile is blocked because the typing experience is core to the game.

PostgreSQL semantics. Most standard SQL works identically across major databases; where the game uses Postgres-specific syntax, the chapter briefing calls it out.

Anyone preparing for a data interview (analyst, engineer, backend), self-taught developers who want a structured SQL path, and educators looking for a free teaching tool. The first few chapters are friendly to people who have never written SQL before.

Queries run server-side against a live schema. The client never sees the expected result. Ranks are computed from server state, so local tampering cannot move you on the leaderboard.

Yes, if you sign in with Google. Progress follows your Google account across any desktop browser: chapters, XP, and leaderboard rank. Guest sessions are device-bound and hidden from leaderboards; you can upgrade a guest session to a full account from the in-game “Sign in to save progress” button and keep all of your progress.

That was a primary design goal. Interview Mode questions are modeled on the patterns that actually get asked: top-N per group, gaps and islands, rolling aggregates, window functions, schema reasoning. Our interview-questions guide lays out the pattern set explicitly.

Roughly 6 to 10 hours of play, spread however you like. Most players do a chapter or two per session. Replaying for a better score takes less time and teaches the most.

Itai Zeilig. More on the about page.