So say you got your run of the mill 2D game from the 80s to the early 90s. You can tell there are tile pieces used for each space. But instead of moving based in a grid say it's kind of free movement. Would that end up looking bad?

...No? Real life floors that aren't natural tend to "tile" anyway. I think it'd look just fine, and I'm actually having a tough time thinking of games that don't use tiling environment pieces. As long as the tileset and characters mesh (and honestly, they should anyway), you should have no issue!

Before making a demo, one option might be to use your paint program to do a mock up of your tiled background and then paste your character onto that background and see how it looks.

As for keeping your character walking in a grid pattern (orthagonally) instead of any direction that you want, I found fewer programming and design challenges with orthagonal movement. But the over all appearance is more about art style and how well your art assets compliment each other.

Alright. Thanks for all the comments. I'll get my artist to do some tiles and a basic character and see how that will end up looking. For the character he wants to know what resolution and I don't know what to tell him. Should it be the same as the tile blocks or more so there can be more detail?

Alright. Thanks for all the comments. I'll get my artist to do some tiles and a basic character and see how that will end up looking. For the character he wants to know what resolution and I don't know what to tell him. Should it be the same as the tile blocks or more so there can be more detail?