Taking a crack at game development

[Hoeloe]

There are benefits to both systems, and great games can be made even with death aversion in play. In some cases, it's actively a good thing. No-one likes starting from scratch because they did something that lead to their death in a way that was non-obvious. You wouldn't expect to be suddenly killed by an invisible thwomp in Mario, for example, and situations just as awkward as that are harder to avoid in point-and-click games. That said, they can still be done very well, both with and without death. It depends on the game itself, frankly.