Scratch

Hello, everyone. I'm working on something really big. So large, in fact, the sprites are 1024x734. All of them.

Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little. I'm working on a side-scroller and right now my plan is to have enemies and objects appear at random intervals and disappear once broken or passed, with no record that they were ever there. The only problem with this is that there's no way to scroll backwards without arrays that would record the object's former position. So right now I have five options:

1. Use randomization. There wouldn't be any scrolling backwards, but that's fine with me.
2. Use a large amount of variables to record all of the sprite's former positions. Not fun.
3. Wait for Jens or the Scratch team to implement arrays. Boring.
4. Use a lot of sprites, one for every obstacle you face along the way. Very slow.
5. Make several very large sprites (or one sprite with large costumes) using the screen capture
technique. The giant "floor" sprites would have obstacles built into them which would allow be to design in Flash (my medium of choice for artwork) and bring them into Scratch. This brings me to my question; does Java consistenly recognize oversize sprites when it converts the Squeak code? I've seen it go both ways, and I've tested this method in Squeak with nice results. Can anyone spot a pattern in the way java handles these beasts?

If you read through this, you are very, very brave. Thank you.