The steam $20 version should work The free GitHub version is a little wonky on the set up

I recommend using Catapult a launcher, download the windows version and add the EXE as a non-steam game. Make sure to run with proton or the game will not open!

Linux versions do not work! The steamdeck for some reason is missing libraries required to open the game like SDL2 and SDL_images. Manually installing these libraries did not fix the issue.

Running the game through catapult can have some issues like the game not having permission to write to the settings.json. And catapult sometimes doesn't put downloaded mods/sound packs in the right folder, solved by moving mods to dda/data/mod folder through desktop.

Running windows version through proton 8.0.1 FREE VERSION WORKS!