When I used to play games in the past I was always complaining that there is not enough things to do in a game. I wanted more control and more options. Now the game I'm working on has an average of 14 buttons per " state". My game is strategy/roleplaying and is meant to be a thinking game turn based game; so will people be bothered by too many buttons? :confused:

If they are then I guess they aren't the people you should be targeting as your game audience. It sounds to me as though you have a pretty clear cut idea on how you want a game to be laid out and I'm not going to be the one to tell you that you should alter your designs significantly in order to 'potentially broaden' your viable market.

My recommendation would be that if you can find ways to streamline or simplify the interface without cutting out the very thing you have sought after-- mastery of control and options-- then go for it. But if not, then don't fret it too much. Heck, SimCity 3000 and SC4 have dozens and dozens of buttons, controls, graphs, landscape views, etc. People seem to play those plenty.

Ultimately, you should never underestimate the casual gamer's ability to... well... break a really fancy game down into a basic game of click-and-go. :)

- Air