Originally posted by Spark Bibo:

Thanks Warchild, that's what I was hoping to hear.

I know the Steam Deck is (relatively) new and although they do a GREAT job labeling the compatibility of the games to the Deck, I have found some of my favorite games I already own are listed as fully compatible, which technically, they are, but then in the game, the left stick controls the mouse pointer or things like that and then you have to click on parts of the game.... So I'm trying to avoid "It technically works but the controls don't quite translate"

Two things I'd like to suggest then.

protondb.com - it's nothing so simple as "Works/Doesn't Work), when you click on a title, it'll be filled with reports of how it worked for people. It also includes any tweaks (such as launch options or setting changes) to get the most out of it. Just be sure to keep an eye out for "It doesn't work" posts being from old versions of proton.

Secondly, you should configure the controller scheme in steam to get it to work more like you'd want, however, the hacky controller-to-kbm problem will always be there, unfortunately. Mouse controls are terrible for controllers, I've been remapping controllers (often to keyboard buttons) since long before steam thought about it, and I still strongly dislike mouse controls and what little we can do with them on a controller.

So, in general, I'd look for games that either list controller support on their store page, or use a menu or camera based system instead of a mouse cursor.