I pretty much have three options here:

• Keep using taxicab geometry (every node has 4 neighbours, and a 'circle' is a sort of weird diamond shape. easy to program and neighbour overlap is easy to understand!)
• Switch to a hex grid (every node has 6 neighbours, and visually it's quite pretty -- if difficult to program in css)
• Stay on a square grid, but include diagonal neighbours (every node has 8 neighbours, and a 'circle' is basically a square. neighbours overlap a lot and this makes it very hard to make 'walls'.)

would a CSS hex grid be that hard? Just push every other row 50% of a cell to the right.

it probably wouldn't be! i just tried and it got on my nerves not being able to make the grid... perfect...

i'll give it a go.

I think the hex grid would probably be the best option as it would look nice and unique while also not overwhelming the player with a lot of neighbors but also not too little amount of neighbors