Wonderlocke Challenge
 

For those of you familiar with Nuzlocke, here's an interesting challenge I heard about. Here are the rules for the challenge, some of which are from the classic Nuzlocke:

• If a Pokémon faints, it's dead. You either must release it or leave it in the PC and never withdraw it until the challenge is over. Dead Pokémon cannot participate in battles. If an NPC forces revival upon dead Pokémon, they are still dead and must be disposed of when possible.
• You may catch only the first Pokémon you find on each route. If you opt not to or it faints, you cannot catch a Pokémon for that route. All Pokémon you catch or receive must be Wonder Traded away. You are then stuck with whatever you get. Therefore, you must have Internet access when catching Pokémon, and you cannot progress until the Pokémon has been successfully Wonder Traded away. At no point may you use any Pokémon you caught.
  • Shiny exception: If you run into a shiny and it's not the first Pokémon of a route, you may catch it, but it is to be treated as dead and left in the PC.
• No resetting. If a Pokémon dies, you cannot reset the game to revive it. Save and continue on.
• Items, Pokémon Centers, shops, and the PC are fair game as long as they aren't used to revive fainted Pokémon.
• Beyond Wonder Trade, you may not trade or use event Pokémon until the challenge is completed.
• The challenge is completed when you enter the Hall of Fame.
• If an HM is required to progress through an area and you lack a Pokémon that can learn it, you may catch a Pokémon specifically for that purpose. However, this Pokémon must be treated as dead and disposed of when not needed.
• Optional: Set your own restrictions if you feel it's too boring or too easy:
  • Continue Wonder Trading until you get a Pokémon you don't yet own in any evolutionary stage (your choice to include/exclude dead Pokémon).
  • Trade away Pokémon that are ten levels above your current highest-leveled Pokémon.
  • Keep only six Pokémon at a time. All others are dead.
  • Trade your entire team away for a new one after each gym leader.
  • Usage of Pokémon Amie may be restricted, as one of its perks is a Pokémon holding on with 1 HP from an otherwise deadly blow.
  • Super Training cannot be used.
  • Exp. Share cannot be used. It must be disabled immediately upon acquisition.
  • Blacking out is a game over.
  • Restrict item use, shops, and/or Pokémon Centers, or use only items found on the ground.

An obvious problem does arise: won't my Pokémon ignore me a lot? Yep, that's part of the fun. :P Be sure to keep an eye on levels and gym completion.

*Sniffs the air* I feel... I feel like THIS was the reason I bought both Pokemon X and Y... Oh yeah, there's no reason I SHOULDN'T do this. Challenge accepted.

Famous last words.

I think a general rule for ANY type of challenge rules in X and Y should be not to use the Exp. Share. It's basically a switch for easy mode.

I clarified the usage of HM slaves and NPCs healing your Pokémon.

Edit:
Banned that too.

So is Super Training in a sense, and Pokemon-Amie also gives you some ridiculously cheap boosts. However, considering how old and flexible Nuzlocke is, it's your own choice.
Since you brought it up I might not use it in my challenge.

Would the Wonder Trading thing apply to gift Pokémon as well? Like my second starter and the Mega Lucario? Even so I'm still keeping Charmander.

Never liked these -locke challenges, myself. The concept of Pokémon dying makes the game too serious. Plus it drives the "POKÉMON IS BAD!" crap you get from PETA and similar sources.

Nuzlocke challenges. I've done many but never finished a single one due to how difficult it is. If you ask me I think it's almost necessary for X and Y to have a challenge mode since they're probably the easiest Pokémon games to date. Lack of a real story and the EXP Share's unfair boost made me breeze through the game faster than expected.

No, you cannot use any Pokémon given to you in the game. You can trade them away and use what you get, however.

Just wondering about this particular challenge. What if you're hit by the Bad Egg bug while Wondertrading? Are there any exceptions for when that happens?

The Bad Egg doesn't occur due to Wonder Trading. The incident has missing information, but it's confirmed to be unrelated to Wonder Trading.

Attempting this gem of a Nuzlocke challenge currently (also only my second nuzlocke ever attempted, period). My only deviation was that rather than catching the first pokemon on each new route and trading it away, I simply caught 5 pokemon as soon as I could get pokeballs, and wonder traded them all away (including my starter). I'm still adhereing to the rest of the rules (no super training, no revival of "dead pokemon", no resetting, etc). I'm also uping the ante' by only using pokecenters if I have absolutely no potions, or other HP healing items, on me.

One question though: if a pokemon faints and is considered "dead", do we get to wonder trade it away and replace it in our party with whatever we receive in return? If not, then I would simply use the rule of catching the first pokemon I see on a new route and then wonder trading that away.

I'd assume not, since that would provide an infinite source of Pokémon to use and part of the challenge is in not letting all of the Pokémon you catch go down.

I figured as much, just was curious.

About an hour into the challenge and I'm already feeling the sting of these pokemon not wanting to obey me, it's a real pain.

Wonderlocke challenges tend to get difficult later on if you let a lot of Pokémon die, as you are a lot more likely to get breeding fodder (level 1) than to get something of a significant level.

At which point one is suddenly grateful that the Exp. Share is broken, right?

That'd probably be the one time you'd allow yourself to use that item: when your Pokémon die and you're forced to level up a bunch of breeding fodder.