Gem Wizards Tactics no longer has "permadeath"!

I've always had issues with the term "permadeath", actually, because it's kind of unclear, it's kind of mixing mechanical and narrative (what is "death" exactly?)

Anyway, as we were experimenting with the new CARAVAN mode on the Beta Branch, one of our top GWT testers and all around awesomeguy, Ryan Bowles (he's making his own cool turn based game which you should check out!) suggested, what if we just got rid of permadeath completely and made it that units were just benched for 1 mission if they were killed?

At first I was kinda unsure about that. I mean, isn't the whole premise with a mode like this, that X-Com style "gaining and losing guys" economy? But at the same time, for a long time I had been bugged by the fact that gameplay in Ranked Mode was strategically very different from that in Campaign Mode. In Ranked Mode, it's perfectly reasonable to make sacrifice plays, where you lose a unit to achieve some objective. In Campaign Mode, you couldn't do that nearly as much.

Then, when we added the "hit points are saved between missions" in the first Beta version of the Caravan, another playtester Reschiiiv noticed that now the game had become extremely calculationy and intense. Every single hit point mattered now. Maybe that's not super good for a game that is trying to be more strategic and less tactical.

So, with all this in mind, and with Ryan's awesome suggestion, I decided to go completely the other way and get rid of Permadeath completely. Now, when a unit dies in battle, it's simply benched for 1 mission. (Your Wizard is still exempt from this, of course). There's no saving of hit points at all.

There will probably need to be other balance changes going forward; if anything, the game should be a bit easier now than it was before, at all levels. So I'm looking forward to your thoughts.

Without any further adieu, here are the patch notes - which also have many, many other significant changes! Check it out!

Version 1.20

• Caravan System! You can now find random items in treasure chests around the map, equip and unequip them freely,
• A BUNCH of new items, including a flame sword, a jetpack, a regeneration orb and a bunch more!
• Archmage difficulty is a good bit easier and has a more consistent difficulty throughout.
• Flamethrower ability is now once-per-turn.
• New sounds for Ninja's abilities.
• New sounds for flier movement (including jetpack).
• Fire Mage's Melt Armor now suppresses fire immunity.
• A lot of improvements to the unit tracker - summons should now be deleted from it when they die.
• Seedlings now START with 1HP but can gain up to 10.
• Enemy Pyros can now cast Flamethrower.
• The ESC key now gets you out of the stats screen.
• Deathberry Bushes now give you +1 AP
• Fixed some bugs with enemy hit points - GOLD enemies should have 15 HP now.
• Many optimizations to gameplay - the game should run smoother now.
• The Ice Mage's Chill Step now creates more floe and some other small usability issues with it fixed
• Ice Storm AP cost 2=>1, GP cost 2=>3, damage to Ice Mage 4=>1 and damage to all nearby units was 3 adjacent/2 at range, now it's just flat 2.
• Fixed a BUNCH of issues related to the Action Point system.
• You can now SHIFT-TAB to go backwards in the unit order.
• You can now see details about a rescuable unit by hovering over it in the campaign hub.
• You can now disable the combat camera zoom feature in the gameplay options.
• Some fixes to the combat camera zoom.