I'm not sure you can disable the arrow keys, but you can add keyboard shortcuts to applications.

Go to System Preferences
Choose "Keyboard & Mouse"
Choose "Keyboard Shortcuts"
Scroll to the bottom and click on "Application Keyboard Shortcuts
Click on the + button underneath the dialog box
A new dialog box will appear, choose your app, type in the EXACT name of the menu command from your app and type in the keyboard shortcut you want to use.
Click add
Repeat this for duplicating all functions of the arrow keys
As an example make the up key arrow the "i", the right arrow the "k", the down arrow the "m" and the left arrow the "j"

Thanks - only had Leopard a few weeks and still finding my way around. What with that and a bright and shiny new iMac, it's a big change from Panther and my old 15" G4 machine!

I tried what you suggested and found only numeric keys could be put in. Anything else just gave me the dinging noise. On top of that the numeric key replacements didn't work. Any guess as to why?

I have found that the keys can actually be changed within the game, but would still like to know how to assign keyboard shortcuts properly...

Syzygy

As far as the numeric not working, I think it may be because the menu name must be exactly the same as the menu in the app.

As far as the letters, my apologies, you need to add a modifier such as the control key or command key to the letter such as control-l. Probably not the best solution for a game ;)

Yup, with numerics the name was exactly the same as the menu. It's simple enough: menu items read 'up', 'down', etc. Agreed, in tandem with Ctrl or Cmd is not the ideal solution for the letter keys, Lol!

Having changed the keys within the game though, I'm finding now that about a minute in I'm getting that warning ding with every keystroke, which is really annoying!

Syzygy