D-Pad Shim for GameBoy Color GBC

thingiverse

This is a starting point for anyone that has an aftermarket set of of button/silicone pads for the GameBoy Color and finds their D-pad "mushy" and unresponsive. In my case, the D-pad inputs were all mushy but especially bad with Left and Up presses missing about half the time. I started with the 0.9mm version and sanded the sides corresponding to the Right and Down directions until they were significantly thinner than the other sides. After a lot of fiddling and trial and error, I had a good solution and a fully responsive D-pad. The final test is to fire up Link's Awakening and check if you can make Link walk in a smooth full circle. There is another solution for this issue that applies to a different style of aftermarket D-pad here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4710169 In my case, my D-pad had a rounded pivot. There are 0.9mm, 0.8mm, and 0.7mm versions to try out.