is it possible to make a tile based game with using arrays?
I’m going to ahead and say “Yes” even though I don’t know how to do it. I’m sure there is a way to use an array. 
Yeah, there is.
Think about it like this:
tiles[0] = "hello"
tiles[1] = “goodbye”
then, just have your gamepiece / character have a variable which is incremented or decremented based on it’s position. Then, compare it’s value with the array.
trace(tiles[gamepiecevariable]);
if gamepiecevariable == 0, you get “hello”; else, if it is == 1, you get “goodbye”
Should give you the basic idea.
–EP
One of the best sites for this: http://oos.moxiecode.com/
ahhh! what i meant to write, was…
is it possible to make a tile based game WITH OUT, using arrays?
Sure, but IMO you are just giving yourself more work and making things harder on yourself. The array method, although it can be tedious, is probably the most efficient method to do something like that with.
But I wouldn’t know for sure, i’m not a game programmer :-\
