- Say you have a monochromatic tileset of 16x16 tiles. Would there be any map resolution constraints to consider?
Yes. Just the screen edges, though. 6*4 map at the largest.
- Is map-looping possible? This might be most useful for RPG world maps where a player has access to a ship or transport of some kind.
Yes, but you'd move the coordinate of the transport, not the map itself IIRC.
- Would it be possible to animate tiles in some fashion? (i.e., water) What kind of animation is most feasible?
You could but, the game would be horribly slow...
- With the sprite-routine, what sort of limitations are we looking at? How many sprites on screen at a single time?
You can fill the screen with non-moving sprites. But, when you animate them, the game will lag (if you use the real(1) command).
- Any specific constraints on the number of tiles that can be fit into a single tileset? (or total memory)
Just memory.