I'm new to this, it didn't occur to me that I could desolder the extra USB/HDMI connectors from the Pi Zero to thin it down.

As I've already soldered the Pi to the Circuit Gem, can I... Cut them off? Am I just stuck with them on this build?

Yup, that matches.

Yup, swapped in a different SD card and it works fine. Weird. Thanks!

I'm sure I have an unused one somewhere around here... I'll try to track another one down in the morning.

I've got my Gem together and functional, though I don't have my battery, yet. The first time I boot it up, everything's great. Retropie starts up, I can configure my buttons, the menus do menu-y things. It's great. Then I turn it off, pushing the Sleep button for a gentle shutdown. Turns off nicely....