If you press 'F' while hovering over them does it work? It shouldn't be working that way tbh but I'm just trying to isolate the problem. How did you install/launch the game? Using itch app or directly on your computer?
You could. But if you didn't have one connected already it might not do anything still. I was mostly wondering if you had one connected and it was switching the controls to that then it'd block your mouse and keyboard controls. If it does do something if you use a gamepad it would narrow down some possibilities though.