What I'm doing right now is familiarizing myself with the sprite system of playbasic.
My plan is to try a hybrid.
I'm going to use an array to mirror the map system itself.
And the sprites are going to have very specific and custom collision detection routines.
I want object behaviors, and I'm going to try creating sprites as instances of a parent object.
Right now, I'm working on different physics stuff. This is going to become a sonic/donkey kong country style 2d engine at some point.
Hopefully I can build on it.
Screenshot below:
(http://underwaredesign.com/screens/PlayBasic/Forums/LemonWizard/Sprite-Screen-Shot.jpg)
Original (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v611/link_jr97/Shot1-1.jpg)