How many copies has Bucket Detective sold?

indielist estimates Bucket Detective has sold between 10,848 and 25,312 units (median 18,080), derived from its 226 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.

Who developed Bucket Detective?

Bucket Detective was developed by the whale husband and published by the whale husband.

Who published Bucket Detective?

Bucket Detective was published by the whale husband, developed by the whale husband. See the whale husband's full catalogue and submission status on indielist.

When was Bucket Detective released?

Bucket Detective was released in 2017.

How many reviews does Bucket Detective have on Steam?

Bucket Detective has 226 Steam reviews, of which 86% are positive.

Is Bucket Detective worth playing?

Steam players rate Bucket Detective 86% positive across 226 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

Bucket Detective

Feb 16, 2017 Adventure $3.99

Developer the whale husband Publisher the whale husband

Profile updated Jul 2026

Adventure indie game Bucket Detective offers a low-cost entry at $3.99. Released in 2017 by the-whale-husband, which also published it, it has 226 Steam reviews listed with a 0% positive rating and mixed status.

Bucket Detective is a 2017 Adventure game developed by the whale husband and published by the whale husband. On Steam it has gathered 226 player reviews, 86% of them positive, which counts as a very positive reception among indie titles in the Adventure category. The game is available on mac, windows, and launched at $4. The pairing of developer the whale husband with publisher the whale husband is one of the studio-publisher relationships indielist tracks, letting players find comparable games and letting developers and investors study how Adventure projects reach the market. indielist's white-box method estimates its lifetime sales at roughly 11,000 to 25,000 units, with the full Boxleiter factor breakdown shown on this page rather than a single black-box figure. Within indielist's catalog of indie games mapped to their studios, publishers, and funding, Bucket Detective can be compared against similar Adventure titles and benchmarked on review counts and estimated sales.

Reviews

226

Positive

86%

Steam appid

461170

Engine

Unknown

Players (snapshot)

Unavailable

Sales estimate

v1.0

11K to 25K

units (median: 18K)

≈ $25K to $58K modeled net revenue (fixed store-cut, refund, and regional-price assumptions applied)

11K median 25K

+ How is this calculated?

226 reviews × NB(80) = 18,080 median units

Factor	Adjustment
base	+50
year_2017	+30
price_$4	-20
positive_86%	+10
genre_Adventure	+10
final NB	80

Heuristic display range: median × [0.6, 1.4]. Boundary protection: NB ∈ [15, 150].

Methodology & limitations

Sales estimates use an additive Boxleiter-derived heuristic against public Steam review counts. They are not authoritative sales data, and the fixed display range is not a statistically validated confidence interval. Actual results may fall outside it, especially for deeply discounted or bundle-heavy titles. Algorithm version v1.0. Read the exact method and validation status.

indielist estimates lifetime unit sales for Bucket Detective at roughly 11,000 to 25,000 copies, with a median around 18,000, derived from its 226 Steam reviews using a multi-factor Boxleiter method (version v1.0). That median maps to approximately $41K in net revenue after Steam's 30% cut, regional pricing, and refunds. Unlike black-box trackers, the full calculation is shown on this page: a base review-to-sales multiplier is adjusted for release year, launch price, review sentiment, studio size, and genre, and every adjustment is listed so developers, publishers, and investors can audit exactly how the figure was reached. The range itself reflects genuine uncertainty — review-to-sales ratios vary widely between games — so indielist publishes a low, median, and high band rather than a false-precision single number, and treats free-to-play, heavily discounted, and bundle-distributed titles as having wider error margins still.

Price history

6 observed days · window low $3.99

Across 6 observed UTC days from 2026-08-01 to 2026-09-05, the daily lowest tracked USD price across stores ranged from $3.99 to $3.99. The tracked-window low was $3.99 on 2026-08-01.

Real store observations · daily lowest tracked USD price across stores · missing days are not filled.

Where to buy

Affiliate disclosure

Steam reference

$3.99 Buy
Green Man Gaming

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Fanatical

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Humble Store

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GOG.com

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Latest tracked store observations (2026-09-05 07:30 UTC), cheapest first. Prices may have changed since observation. Some are affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

Platforms

macwindows

Genres

AdventureIndie

Frequently asked questions

How many copies has Bucket Detective sold?: indielist estimates Bucket Detective has sold between 10,848 and 25,312 units (median 18,080), derived from its 226 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.
Who developed Bucket Detective?: Bucket Detective was developed by the whale husband and published by the whale husband.
Who published Bucket Detective?: Bucket Detective was published by the whale husband, developed by the whale husband. See the whale husband's full catalogue and submission status on indielist.
When was Bucket Detective released?: Bucket Detective was released in 2017.
How many reviews does Bucket Detective have on Steam?: Bucket Detective has 226 Steam reviews, of which 86% are positive.
Is Bucket Detective worth playing?: Steam players rate Bucket Detective 86% positive across 226 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

Players looking for games like Bucket Detective can compare it on indielist against semantically similar Adventure titles such as Subnautica, Raft, Satisfactory, Human Fall Flat, ranked by shared tags and genre rather than by ad spend. On the developer side, the whale husband's other releases and the whale husband's wider catalog are one click away, letting developers benchmark where Bucket Detective sits among a studio's body of work and how its publisher's portfolio performs. Because indielist maps studios, publishers, games, and funding into one connected graph, the same Bucket Detective page serves three audiences at once: players hunting their next Adventure game, developers studying how comparable projects were positioned and what they sold, and investors tracing which teams and labels are active in the space. A machine-readable markdown mirror of this page is published at the same path with a .md suffix for AI assistants, and its review, price, and sales-estimate figures are refreshed on a schedule rather than frozen at launch.

Matched from shared Steam tags and primary genre. Review count breaks ties; it is not a personal recommendation score.