Hi r/SwitchPirates,
If you've tried to set a play-time limit on a modded Switch, you know the problem: the Parental Controls phone app needs the console to reach Nintendo, and System Settings has no time limit at all. The usual answer is a sysmodule or an overlay.
https://github.com/JigSawFr/PlayGuard
I wanted the console's own parental controls to do the job, so I wrote PlayGuard. It's a homebrew app that sets Nintendo's native parental controls directly on the console, offline. No phone app, no Nintendo account, nothing sent to Nintendo.
Because it's the native system, the countdown, the "time's up" warning, the PIN prompt and the suspension are exactly the ones you get on a stock Switch. Nothing runs in the background, and the limits stay in place even if PlayGuard is deleted from the SD card.
What you can do with it:
• Set a daily play-time limit, the same every day or per weekday, give extra time, or stop play for today
• Set the bedtime alarm, the restriction level, the age rating and the PIN
• See play time per game and per user account, and export it (CSV, JSON, XLSX, PDF)
• Keep the console clock right offline (NTP), and see when someone has moved it
• Unlink a previous owner's phone app or remove parental controls on a second-hand console
• Undo any change from the history, back up your settings, in every console language
Good to know:
• Firmware 21.0.0 to 22.5.0, tested on 22.0.0, 22.1.0 and 22.5.0. Older firmware works except for the play timer. 23.x opens read-only until it has been tested on hardware.
• Nintendo's timer has one limit for the whole console. If you need a different limit per kid, NSParentalControl is a better fit.
• sysMMC and emuMMC each have their own parental controls: set both if you use both.
Install extract playguard.zip to the root of the SD card. Updates then install from the app itself.
Download: https://github.com/JigSawFr/PlayGuard/releases
It started as a fork of Taylor's Pctl Manager and it's open source (GPLv3). I'm the developer, so ask away. And if you try it on 23.x, a report would really help.