Scratch

I don't think you can have a sprite larger than the screen, which makes the question moot - you will probably have to go the many islands route, though some sprites might contain 2 or maybe (if very small) 3 Islands.

Mayhem: it wouldn't need to be larger than the screen, would it?  It would just have to be larger than the *cropped* screen Alvekatt created--it would just rest 1 layer back from the edge sprite.

Sawman3 wrote:

Mayhem: it wouldn't need to be larger than the screen, would it?

If it wasn't it would rather defeat the whol epurpose of scrolling. 

If I were you, Alvekatt, I'dd draw out the entire archipeligo as one picture, its height and width an exact multiple of the window size of the scrolling engine.  Draw your islands against a single colour, non-detailed background.  Slice it into screen-sized sprites (Reiner's Tilecutter is a good program for this) then import these into scratch.  Finally, use flood fill to make the sea on the sprites transparent.

I did read it, and my comment stands.  It would be a waste of time to scroll a background that is, in total, no larger than than the screen, since you could just display it full screen with no need for scrolling. 

The "frame" or lack of it is irrelevenat to this argument, since it is a purely arbitrary device.  If the background behind the frame is no bigger than the full screen, just get rid of the frame.

And I'm pretty sure that Alvekat wants his play area to be greater than a single screen.