Ah just noticed your 2nd post.

Yup, it's tiled. And like what you mentioned, it's gonna have layers too.

Currently what is near fully implimented and what is planned is:

1) Background 'panaramic' Layer -- I may go animated if resources allow for it.
2) BG Tile layer -- animation capable using a single tileset texture for the whole layer.
3) FG Tile layer -- this is the layer that interacts with the player. Not animated, but contains extra data about the tilespace and how the player or other objects will interact with it.
4) Sprite objects layer -- The item, player and enemy sprites will be drawn here
5) Effects layer -- Planning on drawing all my explosions, and special effects here.
6) Foreground graphics Layer -- might double up as a 2nd effects layer[size=9px](for weather like snow, fog and rain)[/size] or include special sprites or covering foreground graphics to give the maps more visual depth.


I thought about what you suggested, but I ran into some unknown territory wrt collision detection. ie. How to make it look nice when going up/down slopes or stairs yet keep the same detection 'points'. but beyond those basic issues the even greater one... who is going to render all that map the way I want it? Thats one or two big bitmaps. [size=9px](Especially for my planned 32-bit colors!)[/size]