Ok, I know it sounds crazy but I actually quite like this set up I made for playing cataclysm dda using onboard steam deck controls. There are four pop up menus of keys that map to left joystick, left touchpad, right joystick and right touchpad. The remaining center two columns of the qwerty keyboard map to the rear four buttons and two shoulder buttons like they are on the qwerty keyboard.

(No mouse because it is cdda you don’t need a mouse.)

https://sopuli.xyz/post/12374907

There are three rings, the wasd ring which is a natural spatial mapping at this point for pc gamers (push the s down, z and x get pushed to the sides and become diagonals), the vim ring which unfolds the classic hjkl vim navigation controls (with diagonals) into the natural spatial mapping (might actually help you learn basic vim controls lol idk) and the numberpad gets its own ring/3x3 square but retains number row shift functionalities. The fourth menu has keys on the righthand side of the qwerty keyboard basically represented as they are on the keyboard and houses mainly menu/ui navigation stuff.

Maximally little unnecessary memorization and it works, as nonsense as it sounds.