So I played the demo to the water monster part with my lantern oil full, and of course I died, not knowing at first how to avoid it. I spent quite a bit of time jumping frantically and running around and using up lantern oil, and one thing I noticed when I restarted the level was that the lantern hadn't restored. Is this a punishment system in place to discourage people from attempting trial and error through dying a lot? Or is it just a bug?
Actually I think the save system is perfect.
If you have to quit, fine, quit - it saves.
Then you have checkpoints.
Any other saves aren't necessary. If you want to save before you open a door, that's ruining the experience. If you want to say half way through an intense and difficult sequence, that's ruining the experience.
The only problem would be if the power goes out or if your game crashes - but I'm sure the checkpoints are sprinkled very thick so you will lose maybe 30 seconds of gameplay at most.
(y)
I don't even notice it saving, so that works great for me.
What do you do if you run out of lantern oil in a part that you keep dying and can't figure out what to do? It will remain dark forever and you'll have to trash the profile and start all over.
The games also saves the last 20 checkpoints / save-and-exits. Can access through "Load Game" in main menu.
EDIT: And if 20 is not enough, you can edit in one of the config files.