A square with littler separate squares inside of it.

two intersecting wrenches came to mind first.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

I thought of the radio buttons as well at first, but you have to consider the context, the style of the game itself.
In your case, I''d use something futuristic.
The metaphor of tools works well.
Two gears that animate when you roll over,
or a wrench turning a bolt,
personally I would probably use a hammer and a wrench crossed over each other.

Dont forget to do a roll over, or at least a tool tip to explain what each icon *is*. It''s not too hard to do and avoid a lot of frustration for the user !

Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Oh man, can''t believe you missed this one. The Twister spinner!

Or, Take the game logo, place it on a rectalinear (preferably 1.6 times as wide as tall) area and draw puzzle pieces onto it. Each piece of the puzzle represents a part of the menu indicated by text on mouseover. If the piece of the puzzle fits into the whole picture, the menu item is not selected by mouseclick. If you want a mouseover menu name activated, click, and ''a piece of the puzzle is removed, either disappearing or just pulled away as if you handled it with your hands''. The individually selected menu list screens up foreground, you make changes, click ok or save, and the piece of the puzzle fits back into the logo as the list disappears. Simple, engaging, unique, brand reinforcing (they see your gameco logo lots), a little ''gamey'' (ugh!), and it will do the job, dude.

Adventuredesign

"I encourage you all to follow me into computer entertainment without hesitation"

I''d vote for the gear as that''s what MS Windows uses for the ''settings'' option on the "Start" button.

You''''ve never seen anyone like me, and you''''ll never see anyone like me again!

I''d just use a branching arrow. In this screenshot you can see the arrow on the top, fifth from the left.

~CGameProgrammer( );