Be Excellent To Each Other

Nah, its just not easy regardless of hand size, i nearly gave up and just bought a new one, but then I found it much easier when I used tweezers.

Regarding just buying a new one, if the joycons were cheaper I suspect thousands of people would just go "eh, ok I'll get a new set" and they are a massive sales boost.

They can't be selling them at cost already at that price, surely?

They are stupidly expensive, but then the same applies to pretty much any modern game controller and I don't get it.

Thanks for all the advice on this, folks. I used the kit that TheVision linked to and the guide that DBSnappa mentioned and changed both of the joycons. It didn’t take long, about 10-15 minutes for the pair and was less complicated and less fiddly than I’d expected, and now they work perfectly again. I’m so happy with them.

We don’t use them often (or at all, for about 2 years), but I’m glad to have the option at least for the sake of £10.

They do seem expensive and I wish they were cheaper but then.... I genuinely don't know how much components cost, and seems to a simple soul like me that there's a lot of tech stuff inside the controller. I don't know how much of all this stuff can be on one circuit board, nor how complex the thingybobs are. I suppose I could watch a teardown video to learn about this but I hate the word 'teardown' and don't feel like watching a 30 minute youtube video unless the presenter is charismatic and entertaining.

Rumbly bits
batteries and charging connectors
accelerometer bits
sound things (headphone connector / speaker / mic)
Lots o'buttons, triggers too
thumbsticks
connectivity things (bluetooth or whatever)
other weird things (IR sensor in the joycon, touchpad for PS4)

All inside some plastic rigid enough to take a bit of rough handling

Speaking of the cost of joycons, has anyone tried any of the third party ones? I've got four proper ones, but minor surgery appears to have killed one, and another appears to have developed a deadzone when moving the stick exactly to the right.
It's a rare occasion we need more than 2, so I'm a bit reluctant to fork out £60, but would like to have 4 (working) ones for when the need arises.

I got one unwittingly from onbuy. It does the job but is very much inferior. Sticky + and - buttons, more noticeable buzzing from the motors. Works well enough, but you get what you pay for.

We have sticky buttons, thanks to one of the kids playing Switch with food covered hands (I suspect chocolate). I'm considering taking the joycon apart to see if I can clean it out but I am a little reluctant (as it still works, it just heeds pressing hard a few times at the start of each play session to free it up, and then after that it's mostly OK for the rest of the sesh).

Do you think this is salvageable? Anyone got any particularly good tips or guides?

We have sticky buttons, thanks to one of the kids playing Switch with food covered hands (I suspect chocolate). I'm considering taking the joycon apart to see if I can clean it out but I am a little reluctant (as it still works, it just heeds pressing hard a few times at the start of each play session to free it up, and then after that it's mostly OK for the rest of the sesh).

Do you think this is salvageable? Anyone got any particularly good tips or guides?

It's the Y button that's worst affected. X is a tine bit sticky, all others are fine.

You could try a little bit of isopropyl alcohol dripped into the buttons. Might be enough to dissolve the creamy muck muck. Failing that, some window cleaner might work

That's a good idea - I'll give that a little try

When I first got the Switch, I also bought some minecraft themed 3rd party controllers. You couldn't charge them on the switch, they had to be connected via bluetooth and they were generally a bit shit. I took them back and stumped up the extra for a set of proper joycons.

Edit: Gioteck JC-20 if you want to avoid

The Madcatz controller I had for the N64 was mad bad enough that still to this day I am really wary of any 3rd party controller.

It is here

I was pleased to see Gamboy stuff turn up on the Online Expansion pak thing. A bit of Mario Land 2 (6 golden coins) took me right back to being a young lad again.

An most importantly for me, finally I will get round to finishing Link's Awakening. It's been bugging me since the 90s, but never enough to actually go back and finish it properly, but now with the convenience of the Switch I will finally knock it over.

Then, if I can be bothered, I'll finish off Majora's Mask and Banjo Kazooie

I've been playing Wario Ware all over the weekend and it's great. I have managed to unlock everything on the original apart from one extra mini game but now I have save states, I'm going to do it all again.

My first Wario Ware experience was on the wii and it was really wild.

Going back to a game like Links Awakening is interesting, it's still a lot of fun but some of the jarring things stand out, like unskippable dialog, constant item switching (OK, the GB only had 2 buttons but still), being told for the hundreth time when I accidentally brush against a rock without the power bracelet equipped that "you can't lift that with your bare hands" - all things that are much better designed in games now. Despite those grumbles and the annoyance of backtracking I still really like it. The island really is a lot smaller than I remember it being

It's surprising the bits I still remember, and how much I forgot too.

I spent a very enjoyable hour playing OG Gameboy Tetris last night. Worth the price of admission on it's own

liked playing Tetris with my son with two switches last week... really felt like the hallways of my Highschool for a moment

I thought I'd seen someone asking for recommendations gentle but fun little games, but perhaps I imagined it.

Anyway, Pikuniku is a charming little platformer with puzzle elements, with a sense of humour and style. My 6 year old loved it, and the coop was fun too. It's not a long game, but it's a good quick blast and a think we paid a fiver or a tenner for it and it's definitely worth that.

I think that was me a while ago

And tbankhank you, I’ll take a look!

Barry finished Pikuniku after about 4 or 5 days of playing, he needed a little bit of help with a few of the boss battles. He's now replaying it from the beginning, so clearly he likes it.

We also downloaded Runner Bandits, which looked like fun in the videos, but is not actually all that good. The characters control poorly and it's more 'annoying chaos' than 'fun chaos'.

Death Squared is a fun co-op puzzler, we got some mileage out of that one too.