Two captains, two controllers, split screen that can merge into a single camera when you stay together, and Louie from Pikmin 2 as a playable model.
Around it, the port's settings moved into a menu that looks like the game's own, a texture pack installer on desktop, and a handful of fixes to the new-game flow.
Downloads: open_nectar_0.8.apk (Android, arm64), nectar-windows.zip, nectar-linux.tar.gz. Saves and settings from 0.6.5 carry over. The desktop builds now carry the Open Nectar icon (executables and installer on Windows; window icon plus a .desktop file and PNG on Linux).
Local co-op
- Co-op from the title screen. The main menu now reads Start / Co-op / Options / Advanced Options (plus Challenge Mode when unlocked). Start is single player as always; Co-op goes straight to the controller prompt
- Controllers and captains. Each player presses a button on their own controller, then picks a captain, Olimar or Louie, with that same controller (sprites from Pikmin 2-e). Both can pick the same one: with two Olimars player 2 is tinted blue, with two Louies player 2 is tinted red, and Olimar + Louie needs no tint. Cursor ring, cursor trail, antenna light and the HUD follow the same colour.
- Louie. Playable through the Pikmin 2 rip, same route as the HD models: Advanced Options → Graphics → HD Models → Louie and pick
GameCube - Pikmin 2 - Characters - Louie.zipfrom The Models Resource (or drop it intoLoad/Models/). The rig is the GameCube one, so he animates with the original Olimar animations; helmet glass matches Olimar HD, antenna light is blue, and the HUD shows his Pikmin 2 portrait. If the model is not installed the picker says so and keeps Olimar. - Louie HD. The Pikmin 3 rip works too: HD Models → Louie HD with
Wii U - Pikmin 3 - Characters - Louie.zip. When both are installed the Pikmin 3 one is used, the same way Olimar HD replaces the original. - Single player picks a captain too. After Start a Captain prompt asks Olimar or Louie (keyboard, gamepad or a tap), so Louie is not limited to co-op. Challenge Mode stays only Olimar.
- Split screen that merges. New option Mods → Co-op Merged Camera (off by default). On, both halves show one camera while the captains are close and split smoothly as they walk apart; each half's side follows where that player is on screen (left/right, or top/bottom with the horizontal split). Controls follow the camera each player actually sees, so nothing inverts when the shared camera turns. Off keeps a static split.
- HUD per player in each player's half, whichever side it is on.
Advanced Options (new settings menu)
- Advanced Options on the title screen opens the port's settings inside the game's own glass panels, with the same font, cursor and highlight as Options: Display, Controls, Graphics, Mods, Save Data, then Save and Back. Long lists (resolutions, key and button bindings) scroll with a side bar, held Up/Down keeps scrolling, and on touch screens you can drag the list up and down with a finger. The background behind each panel is blurred so the text reads over the title screen.
- Display changes still ask for confirmation with a countdown; the dialog is now a proper panel and reverts on its own when the time runs out.
- Resolution opens a full list instead of cycling.
- F1 in game is unchanged; it is the same settings underneath.
Graphics
- Per-pixel lighting (Graphics → Lighting). The GX lighting equation is evaluated per fragment instead of per vertex, so highlights and light falloff follow surfaces instead of triangle corners. Same equation, same colours; off keeps the vertex lighting from GameCube.
- Shadow maps (Graphics → Shadows: Off / Soft / Normal / Strong). A depth map rendered from the sun (light 0) gives captains, Pikmin, creatures and the ship real cast shadows, filtered with hardware PCF. Cursor, marker rings and particles do not cast. With shadow maps on, the original blob shadows are skipped.
Controls
- Pikmin colour on the D-pad (#43). Left/Right on the D-pad (or the arrow keys) cycles through the colours in your squad, like the Pikmin 2 shortcut, and also while holding A: the Pikmin in hand goes back to the squad and one of the new colours is picked up. Works for both players in co-op; the mouse wheel and the HUD tap keep working as before.
- Mouse buttons are bindable (#42). Any keyboard action can take a mouse button, including Mouse 4 / Mouse 5 (back / forward).
Installers
- Texture packs on desktop now open a file picker (Windows native,
zenity/kdialogon Linux) and extract the zip intoLoad/Texturesthemselves, following the same path rule as Android. No more manual unzip. - HD Models gained the Louie and Louie HD rows; the converters accept the Pikmin 2 and Pikmin 3 Louie rips on desktop and Android, and
build-hd-model-pack.py louie/louie_hddo the same offline.
Fixes
- Choosing Normal / Permadeath and then Normal / Hard with a gamepad auto-confirmed the second question with the same press. Fixed.
- The new-game prompt now keeps the file-select background (stars and gradient) instead of a black screen, and empty slots no longer play the bubble zoom before it.
- Particles with a tint (antenna glow, cursor trail) were only partly tinted; child particles and textured particles now take the colour too.
- NVIDIA PRIME on Linux (#44). Running through
prime-runstill landed on the integrated GPU under Wayland: it exports the GLX vendor but not the EGL one, and SDL uses EGL there. The port now completes the route the environment already asked for (EGL vendor on Wayland, GLX vendor on X11) without touching anything the user set. - Test mode.
PIKMIN_UNLOCK_ALL=1starts a new game with every story and challenge stage open, no tutorial and intro cutscenes skipped. - Menu panels built from the game's layouts can gain extra entries at run time (this is how the title and Advanced panels grow); the glass, the title plate and the cursor icons follow along.
Known issues
- The Onion's light beam is cut short in the port compared to GameCube
- The Nintendo logo in the intro and credits still renders wrong (#40).