Do you mean like parralax scrolling? I kinda used such stuff in Supersonic Ball, although it's more basic.

Ah nice. Also if your background is repeating vertically you can simply fill the first row of the screen with 8x8 tiles then use the copy command over the rest of the screen. It speeds things up a lot compared to when you just fill the screen with the tiles.

Hmm I'm not sure how to do that without using the back buffer. I think you need to redraw the tiles around the enemies to hide those enemies, scroll, then redraw the enemies. That may be complicated, though. The only other solution  is to redraw the tilemapper every frame. You could use another memory location and store a copy of the buffer (before drawing the enemies) there, then when it comes times to scroll, you display that copy on the screen, erasing the enemies in the process, scroll, then display the enemies.

Hmm I'm not sure how to do that without using the back buffer. I think you need to redraw the tiles around the enemies to hide those enemies, scroll, then redraw the enemies. That may be complicated, though. The only other solution  is to redraw the tilemapper every frame. You could use another memory location and store a copy of the buffer (before drawing the enemies) there, then when it comes times to scroll, you display that copy on the screen, erasing the enemies in the process, scroll, then display the enemies.

I actually tried that, and I modified Runer's tilemapper to use 4 lvl greyscale and draw a character over the fore-ground, and it works pretty well.

What I did was copy both buffers from an appvar before moving, scrolled and stored the buffers to the appvar, then drew the player.

Here's the code:
:.TILEMAPR
:prgmSERENA
:.TILEMAP
:[]→GDB0M
:det(1024)
:
:.TILES
:[]→GDB0T
:det(504)
:GetCalc("vSMBuff",1536)→B
:
:.CREATE TILEMAP
:GDB0M-1→D
:0→Y
:While -32
:  0→X
:  While -32
:    X+Y→{D+1→D}
:    X+1→X
:  End
:  Y+1→Y
:End
:
:.CREATE TILES
:Fix 5
:ClrDraw
:EF0→{L6}r→{L6+12}r
:GDB0T-1→D
:0→Z→θ-1
:While Z*10+θ-63
:  Fix 3
:  E0200→{E86D7}r
:  DrawF Z►Dec
:  Fix 2
:  E0204→{E86D7}r
:  DrawF θ►Dec
:  0→Y
:  While -8
:    {Y*12+L6}→{D+1→D}
:    Y+1→Y
:  End
:  !If θ+1→θ-10
:    →θ
:    Z+1→Z
:  End
:End
:Fix 4
:
:.DRAW INITIAL IMAGE
:GDB0M-1→D
:0→Y
:While -64
:  0→X
:  While -96
:    Pt-Off(X,Y,{D+1→D}*8+GDB0T)r
:    X+8→X
:  End
:  D+20→D
:  Y+8→Y
:End
:conj(L6,B,768
:conj(L3,B+768,768
:
:.INITIALIZE POSITION VARIABLES
:0→X→Y→Z→θ→D
:
:
:.MAIN LOOP
:FnInt(DG,2)
:Repeat getKey(15)
:
:  .MOVE DOWN
:  If Y-24
:    FnOff
:    If getKey(1) and (D=1
:conj(B,L6,768
:conj(B+768,L3,768
:      θ-1→θ
:      Vertical -
:      Vertical -r
:      Y+8*32+X-1+GDB0M→r5
:      0→r6
:      While -104
:        Pt-Off(r6+Z,θ+64,{r5+1→r5}*8+GDB0T)r
:        r6+8→r6
:      End
:      !If θ+8
:        →θ
:        Y+1→Y
:      End
:conj(L6,B,768
:conj(L3,B+768,768
:sub(SM)
:    End
:    FnOn
:  End
:
:  .MOVE LEFT
:  If X-Z
:    FnOff
:    If getKey(2) and (D=2
:conj(B,L6,768
:conj(B+768,L3,768
:      Z+1→Z
:      Horizontal(+
:      Horizontal(+r
:      Y-1*32+X+GDB0M→r5
:      0→r6
:      While -72
:        Pt-Off(Z,r6+θ,{r5+32→r5}*8+GDB0T)r
:        r6+8→r6
:      End
:      !If Z-1
:        ‾7→Z
:        X-1→X
:      End
:conj(L6,B,768
:conj(L3,B+768,768
:sub(SM)
:    End
:    FnOn
:  End
:
:  .MOVE RIGHT
:  If X-20
:    FnOff
:    If getKey(3) and (D=3
:conj(B,L6,768
:conj(B+768,L3,768
:      Z-1→Z
:      Horizontal(-
:      Horizontal(-r
:      Y-1*32+X+12+GDB0M→r5
:      0→r6
:      While -72
:        Pt-Off(Z+96,r6+θ,{r5+32→r5}*8+GDB0T)r
:        r6+8→r6
:      End
:      !If Z+8
:        →Z
:        X+1→X
:      End
:conj(L6,B,768
:conj(L3,B+768,768
:sub(SM)
:    End
:    FnOn
:  End
:
:  .MOVE UP
:  If Y-θ
:    FnOff
:    If getKey(4) and (D=4
:conj(B,L6,768
:conj(B+768,L3,768
:      θ+1→θ
:      Vertical +
:      Vertical +r
:      Y*32+X-1+GDB0M→r5
:      0→r6
:      While -104
:        Pt-Off(r6+Z,θ,{r5+1→r5}*8+GDB0T)r
:        r6+8→r6
:      End
:      !If θ-1
:        ‾7→θ
:        Y-1→Y
:      End
:conj(L6,B,768
:conj(L3,B+768,768
:sub(SM)
:    End
:    FnOn
:  End
:0→D
:If getKey(1) and (D=0
:1→D
:End
:If getKey(2) and (D=0
:2→D
:End
:If getKey(3) and (D=0
:3→D
:End
:If getKey(4) and (D=0
:4→D
:End
:End
:LnReg
:Return
:
:  .COPY IMAGE TO SCREEN
:Lbl SM
:0→D
:For(A,12,44
:For(C,36,52
:Pt-Off(C,A,D+Pic1S
:Pt-Off(C,A,D+8+Pic1S)r
:D+16→D
:C+7→C
:End
:A+7→A
:End
:Return
:
:Lbl DG
:Normal
:DispGraphrr
:Full
:Return
:
:.VARIABLES
:.D=Data pointer
:.X=X position in tilemap of top-left corner (0-20)
:.Y=Y position in tilemap of top-left corner (0-24)
:.Z=X offset of top-left corner (0-‾7)
:.θ=Y offset of top-left corner (0-‾7)
prgmSERENA holds the data for the sprite. I just grabbed a sprite from my computer and it turned out to be a Sailor Moon sprite.
Programs attached.

Could you clarify what the code does? Does it do the first thing I said, does it do the second or does it do the last?

Ah ok thanks

From what I remember, they were, but with the arrival of nibble commands in Axe, I wonder if this changed?

My problem is that I'm actually thinking about sacrificing the +100% in data size in exchange for the small amount of speed and executable size gain. It would also make my code a bit more flexible too, so I'm not sure