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Behind the badge
I'm Conor. I've spent years working with data at companies ranging from a 70s retailer finding its feet in the cloud to a cybersecurity platform with 7 million users.
Every time I learned something genuinely useful, it was because I was handed a real problem and had to work it out. Never from a tutorial.
So that is what QueryCase is. It started as a SQL detective game with a real course behind it, the Excel Bureau opened beside the Precinct, and it keeps expanding: new cases, investigations and departments land constantly. Real datasets, real questions, and a path that keeps going long after the basics.
The case for QueryCase
Photocopied worksheets at school, syntax on slides at university, e-learning you click to make stop. Nobody hands you a mystery, so nothing sticks. Here, every SQL and Excel concept arrives inside a case that needs it.
Games get people mastering absurdly complex systems unpaid at 2am; learning apps are either academic or bus-quiz shallow. QueryCase takes the game seriously: mysteries with culprits, XP and streaks, exams as boss fights, ranks earned never given.
Most learning platforms bill monthly for as long as the habit lasts, and bootcamps ask for serious money up front. QueryCase is priced the other way: the first rank of every track is free, and one small one-time payment unlocks everything, forever. No subscription to cancel.
See it in action
No videos. No multiple choice. You get a briefing, a real database and an empty editor. This is Case 001, and it is free.
Someone took the last donut. Our witness saw the culprit leave at 22:10, and whoever did it has no alibi. Find me a name.
What is actually in it
Most learning games are one puzzle. This is a path across two departments, drilled and exam-gated the whole way: SQL from your first SELECT to window functions, Excel from first formulas to pivot tables. Both syllabuses, in full, below.
Your very first case, solved in the browser before you even make an account. From here the path forks into two departments. Pick a desk, or work both.
Free, no signup
Four ranks after Recruit. Each teaches a band of SQL, drills it, then makes you pass an exam to move up.
Single-table basics: find it, filter it, sort it, count it.
SELECT · WHERE · AND / OR · IN · BETWEEN · LIKE · ORDER BY · LIMIT · COUNT
8 cases · 2 drills · graduation exam
Single-table mastery: aggregates, NULLs, text handling and type conversion.
COUNT / SUM / AVG / MIN / MAX · GROUP BY · HAVING · DISTINCT · IS NULL · COALESCE · UPPER / LOWER / SUBSTR / TRIM · CAST
18 cases · 4 drills · graduation exam
Multi-table SQL and real logic: dates, conditionals, subqueries, joins, set operations and CTEs.
JOINs (INNER / LEFT / anti / 3-table) · CASE WHEN · subqueries (scalar, IN, EXISTS, derived) · UNION / INTERSECT / EXCEPT · WITH (CTEs) · date maths
21 cases · 5 drills · graduation exam
Window functions, and capstone cases that combine everything you have learned.
ROW_NUMBER · RANK / DENSE_RANK · SUM() OVER · LAG / LEAD · PARTITION BY
7 cases · 1 drill · final exam + certificate
Four examiner ranks on a real spreadsheet engine: fraud cases where the Bureau accepts the evidence, not the eye. Each ends in an exam on a freshly seeded workbook.
Formulas and references, fill, $ pinning, the SUM family, sorting and formats.
SUM · AVERAGE · COUNT · MIN / MAX · cell references · $ pinning · the fill handle
Graduation exam: The Grid Exam
IF and the criteria family, multi-sheet workbooks, and the lookup dynasty from VLOOKUP to XLOOKUP.
IF · SUMIF / COUNTIF · SUMIFS · VLOOKUP · XLOOKUP · cross-sheet references
Graduation exam: The Registry Exam
Text forensics, manufactured keys, and the date arithmetic hiding under the ink.
TRIM · LEN · LEFT / RIGHT / MID · SUBSTITUTE · CONCAT · DATEVALUE · date serials
Graduation exam: The Archive Exam
Filters, conditional formatting, charts, pivot tables and INDEX MATCH: the whole Bureau kit.
Filters · conditional formatting · charts · pivot tables · INDEX MATCH
Final exam: The Bureau Exam + certificate
The ladder is the spine. These are the reasons people stay.
Open-ended cases with no hand-holding, in both departments. The SQL ones are timed and reshuffle each attempt; the Excel ones are seeded per detective, so no two players share a guilty party and the answer cannot be copied.
On the SQL side: seven real datasets, 44 tables, JOINs across them, or load your own CSV and query it, read in your browser and never uploaded to us. On the Excel side: a full workbook with the whole engine, your own CSVs, and charts built from any range.
For when the goal is a job. Company-style SQL interview questions in a real editor, each checked against a target output and backed by a worked solution, plus a guide to what each data role actually does.
Everything transfers: the SQL is standard (PostgreSQL, MySQL, BigQuery, Snowflake), and the Excel is learned on a real engine, so it carries straight to desktop Excel and Google Sheets.
The first rank of each department is free: the whole Rookie Detective arc and the whole Ledger Clerk arc, and you can solve your first case before making an account.
Start your first case →