In And Kensaku the game used this service to download new search terms from the network, raw data provided by Google and categorized by the developers (Shift or Nintendo, the answer is unclear…) It added new questions to be asked in 'Which Is More', a game that is like Google feud where players had to guess which term would get more hits on Google (like 'Cat Food' vs 'Dog Food'). 'Kensaku Crossword' had new crosswords distributed. I have no idea where in the game the new crosswords would have been put though… With other games the terms could just be added to normal gameplay but with this game there are specific stages so the new terms would have (likely) had a page dedicated to their stages. Can also confirm that new terms were also added to 'Panel 9' and 'Kensaku! Panel 9'. Here they populated the sections of the bingo board.
The fourth page of the Kensaku Crossword stages, the last one, the arrow to the right just takes you back to the first page.
All other games are unconfirmed to have the new terms/stages. (but it is likely that all the games had access to the new terms, just that I haven't seen it).
The game will try to check for new downloads at the title screen upon boot. If that fails the player can also go into settings and check for new terms at any time. As of now though all checks will fail as WiiConnect24 has been shutdown.
I'm not exactly sure how the downloads work but I can assume that it is similar other Wii games like Animal Crossing City Folk. Where the downloaded data is added onto the save file for the game.
There was a feature on the And Kensaku website where search terms suggested by players were showcased (but I don't know where players would go to submit their terms? It does not seem to be on this website.) The dates are archived here: 安藤ケンサク：配信のお知らせ and their dates are:
May 14, 2010
May 28, 2010
July 2, 2010
August 6, 2010
September 3, 2010
October 1, 2010
November 5, 2010
December 3, 2010
December 27, 2010
February 4, 2011
March 4, 2011
April 29, 2011
It looks like they were starting with a twice a month format but quickly switched to once a month (except for December 2010) for the rest of the short lived service. These are the only confirmed dates I can find but it looks like the game may have updated more often than this since the website also mentions English terms being added on June 11th, despite there being no June 11th in the list above. Looks like the list above may have only been the updates that player's submitted, while terms from the development team were not documented in this way.
The service started shortly after release on May 14th 2010, and ended on April 29th 2011. Many games got to run their WiiConnect24 services until the end of the connection itself but And Kensaku ended exactly one year after the game released. It is unknown why the service ended, but based on how popular the game was, I can assume it was either lack of interest, lack of sales, or the game just ran it's course and the updates were not needed anymore. I don't know if the old terms continued to be available until the end of WiiConnect24
I'm here again. Well the thing is that I did have a fully complete save file for this game, cleared all the stages of all minigames. It took a damn long time to do too as I also had to clear all the Crossword puzzles (which I had to use youtube videos as a cheat sheet). I was proud of my save file but not wise enough to back it up anywhere...
I ended up formatting my entire pc due to a virus scare (I was messing around with some shady software and got so scarred that I got hacked that I just cleared out my entire drive) and had to re install windows. I lost my save. This happened in 2023 and yet I have not been able to get the motivation to complete another save.
Also I don't have anything to say at the moment, just wanted to explain why I have been gone for so long. I have a few other blogs I work on and I went back to college this year. Might start posting my art here though :>
This one is going over the minigame Kensaku Gunman (sometimes called Kensaku Musketeer as well) First is the final game shot (sourced from this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC469fUfY40 video)
and the beta shot found in the same place as the first Kensaku Stairs shot
The first noticeable difference is that the word being used as the prompt (with the white bg on the top of the final shot) has a different signpost used to hold it up. The sign is missing details that the final one has and must have been made simple for testing purposes or as a placeholder until the final design was finished. The player icons at the sides of the screen are also not showing up but the beta shot could just be from a different point in gameplay. The cactuses blocking the targets also appear different in the beta with a metal look to them, as compared to the wooden look seen in the final game (these metal cacti could also be in the final but I just haven’t personally seen them yet).
There are not too many differences in these two shots but this game has other elements after the shooting segment (the segment where the hits of the terms chosen are added up) so there could be more differences I don’t know about yet.
As for the beta background this backdrop may be seen in the final game, I do not have access to an emulator for personal testing at the moment so many updates may come in the future when I do.
Climb! Kensaku Stairs is one of the minigames in And Kensaku and I have found some screenshots for it on the web for it. One of them though is a bit interesting. First I will place a screenshot from the final game for reference
and now for this interesting screenshot
The color differences in the background can be disregarded as the colors change during gameplay (the sky changes from day, sunset, night, ect.), what is more interesting are the UI differences. First off the Miis in both the images are wearing red but the red used in the final game is much less saturated than the red seen in the below screenshot. The side showing the number of hits does not have the ‘hit’ text seen in the final game and the stairs icon next to the number of steps to spawn is using a silver star icon, the color of the pop up was also changed from blue to red. The green bar on the below screenshot was changed to red in the final game and the number of stairs that would spawn has also been added. At the bottom right the UI for the number of stairs climbed removed the little stair graphic and made the number of stairs climbed larger on the screen. There is also no time on this possibly beta screenshot but this could just be a different mode of the game being played.
As for the background the beta shot seems to have a polka dot background for the sky, the final has no such dots. Also note that the next word to chose is not showing up on the beta screenshot. Possibly the player would have to watch Kensaku climb the number of spawned stairs before the option to pick the next word would pop up. This was probably changed to speed up the gameplay loop.
The red the mii is wearing in the beta shot seems similar to the red from the wii system’s own mii maker so this could have been a point in development before the choice to change the mii shirt colors was made as in the final game there are less saturated colors of shirts the miis wear.
This possible beta image was found at https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/images/127108-and-kensaku but the exact source of this image is unknown at this time. Will make another post with updates once the source is found.
sometimes in the Graphical Trend Race minigame the robots in the race will trip on nothing. The frames only last like a split second but this one was able to be captured! This is Keyword F Cosmo btw
Kensaku Puzzle all clear letter, this one is obtained by clearing all 120 stages of this game, the most stages of any of the minigames. This letter is sent by Annai Saguru.
