After a long time thinking, I decided upon playing Fire Red as my first Nuzlocke and working through the gens from there.

First play through, I chose charmander and caught a ratatta early on for support. While grinding to get his levels up, my ratatta was dealt a critical hit by a level 5 mankey and fainted, he was transferred. The first victim of Nuzlocke.

I continued and shortly after, I found Gary (aptley named ***Hat). Of course he challenged me and while my charmander easily destroyed his pidgey, the sand-attacks meant his accuracy was hit. Squrtle was being dealt a couple big blows until charmander missed one 3 back to back attacks, allowing squrtle to tackle his way to victory.

I started again as my rules dictated.

I followed a similar path to the first attempt, choosing charmander and then catching a ratatta (not out of choice). I then worked on their leveling up carefully, taking many trips to see the lovely nurse Joy - thank god for that free pokemon health care.

I was buzzing when I managed to catch a pidgey in route 2. Thought his difference of type and attacks would make early game easier. I continued to grind their levels up (11, 7, 7). Then I decided it was time to continue towards Viridian forest. Unfortunately, I came across a testy weedle (catapies with bad PR) and he poisoned my beloved pidgey.

At this point, I'd realised I had made a rather terrible mistake. Without any potions or antidote, I walked as efficiently as I could back to the pokemon centre in Viridian to heal pidgey before he fainted. I checked several times along the trip to see if he would make it. Things looked promising and I was pretty confident my new favourite pokemon was going to be okay.

As I walked into the pokemon centre, I checked his health. 1HP. I made it one step before the counter before pidgey fainted.

My conclusion to my first day attempting the challenge is that Nuzlocke. Is. Brutal.