Unless people have this game open constantly there is no reason for that! Even on challenging games you're given multiple attempts to solve a challenging puzzle. If you want just make it a nuzlocke and put in hard level cap for each area so people just don't have to grind to be stronker than the competition.
Maybe I should elaborate on my mission here.
In a game like D&D, if your party's healer or warrior dies, they are dead. No resets, no take-backs. Consequences are final, no matter how attached you were to how things were going. That's what I want.
So I don't mind if someone needs multiple attempts to solve an ice puzzle or whatever. That's fine.
But I want a game where the consequences of failure (in battle) are actually scary. Failing should count for something.
If someone can just reset
at no cost because their starter was taken out, that is antithetical to what I'm trying to accomplish. I want people to feel invested and like there is always something at stake without hoping they follow some internal honor code.
Side note: I think the grinding that comes with traditional Nuzlocke-ing makes for a really poor game experience. I don't want us to just grind for free or out of necessity. In fact, I want people to actively weigh the costs of trying to grind (potentially having their party members harmed) to be weighed against the EXP benefits.
that's still a lot of game money. games are meant to be played over and over, and even on the most hardcore games on the market (this goes beyond pokemon) don't punish the player for being human. they punish if they don't respond to the challenge or fail when there is actual skill involved.
and honestly I'd just leave my game open all the time if this was a thing.
I think I came up with a solution.
Is there a way for the game to set a variable when you load, then autosave? This variable would be reset to zero when you complete some story relevant task and set to 1 every time the game loads. The aforementioned tasks should be relatively frequent, like beating gyms and/or discovering new map areas. In my head, I see repurposing those pokemon statues you see in every gym into events that reset the variable to zero.
So let's say you beat Misty, which resets the variable to zero, and then you save the game + quit for the day.
Tomorrow, you load the game. We see the variable is at zero, and no penalty happens. The variable is then set to 1, and the game autosaves. Now if you just run into some rando trainer who KOs your starter and you reset the game, the game will see that the variable was at 1 and penalize you. However, once you get to Lt. Surge, the variable is set back to zero.
This way, you get one free save per "area", which should be adequate for normal play. It might be annoying if you start and or some reason get interrupted, but if I can space them out to be every half hour to an hour of playtime, then it should be fine.
The statue idea sounds really amazing to me, actually. I just don't know how to tell the game to check the variable or how to autosave on startup.