It's Only Money News

Hey Everyone,

The time has come! It’s Only Money is finally ditching Early Access and hitting full release on Steam this October 14th! We've also got a fresh new demo, It’s Only Money: Minimum Wage Edition, ready for you to dive into right now. Like...NOW!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The demo is packed with 45-60 minutes of gameplay, including a quick tutorial to get you prepped as Rockhaven’s top menace, which includes 15 minutes of free play. Earn some cash, take on odd jobs, or just drive through the city causing havoc - your earnings unlock sweet (and trashy) rewards in the full game, so make those minutes count!



Chapter 3 Content Overhaul - Now Available

If you're new to Rockhaven or not visited us in a while, let us recap. We started with Chapter Zero, introducing a ton of content and fine-tuning based on your feedback. In Chapter One, we dropped more missions, brought in the Maude Boss fight, and let you roll with your Homies around the city. Chapter Two introduced new Side Hustles, revamped vehicle systems, and Fast Travel.

Now, with Chapter Three (which launched a few weeks back), we’ve brought you the MOVR HQ mission. This is our biggest mission yet, featuring Memphis, an ex-wrestler who’s turned the MOVR base into a full-on wrestling spectacle. Expect drone scouting, sneaking, platforming, and yes, some serious wrestling action. Make sure your Homies are levelled up and ready to tackle our most challenging boss fight yet.



New Enemies

Get ready to face two new enemy types: MOVR LOSRs - the underdogs who’ll throw tantrums and fireworks, and MOVR BRUISRs - the muscle with a Ground Slam and Running Charge that’ll keep you alert.

Introducing Metro Dungeon

We’re also rolling out our third Side Hustle - Metro Dungeon. This roguelite experience puts all your combat skills to the test. Battle through Rockhaven’s Underground Metro System, collect Goorana Crystals, and choose from powerful Relics and Stat Upgrades to craft your perfect build. It’s a roguelite, so you start with nothing and leave with nothing - except the satisfaction of smashing through waves of enemies.

What’s Next?

We’re committed to squashing bugs and fine-tuning the new content based on your feedback. Plus, we’re heading to Gamescom next week to show off It’s Only Money. If you’re there, come check it out on the Indie Area Booth. We'd love to say hey!

Mark your calendars for October 14th and gear up to take back Rockhaven, one block at a time. We’ve got more coming, so stay tuned and keep that feedback coming. The feedback, support and general love shown for our game means a lot!

Hey everyone,

Hope you're enjoying the launch of Chapter Three. As promised we spent a couple of days to fix the most pressing issues, and improve other facets of the game.

- Players now have the ability to cancel Side Hustles and Minigames (Gorb Rush, Prop Hunt, Abduction) by pressing ESC and selecting "Cancel activity"

- Fixed a bug where owning the Metro Dungeon Side Hustle wasn't saving for some players

- Adjusted hints relating to Takeover 2. Players should now unlock these at the appropriate time

- Fixes to graffiti, landscapes and other visual elements in the Metro Dungeon

- The game now forces a save in most situations where players have spent money or engaged in quest steps.

- Some adjustments to the civilian spawning in La Gordo Valley. Hopefully you should see less people spawning and walking around an active runway, for example.

- Changed the unlock path for Takeover 2. It no longer requires the player to own the Drone Racing Side Hustle. The appropriate path is now completing Eternal Pastures, Beggar King's "New Whip" mission.


- And a bunch more smaller fixes to various facts of the game


As always, keep the reports coming and have a lovely weekend.

Hey everyone!

We are beyond excited (and honestly a bit relieved) to announce that Chapter Three of It’s Only Money is finally out the door! To celebrate, we’re offering a special 20% discount for the next two weeks. It's our little way of saying thanks for sticking with us!

We’ve also got a dev stream up on our Steam store page. Now, we’re not live because, well, we needed to collapse into pile of exhaustion. Just for one evening. But you can still watch us play and run through all the cool new features from the recording we did yesterday.

Jump in, enjoy the new content, and take advantage of the discount. Thank you all for your support!

Cheers,
Usual Suspects and Firestoke

Hey everyone,

We're back with another huge Chapter milestone: Our recent updates and overhauls to our Combat system, Controller Support and Experience surrounding those have lead us to a really exciting spot where we can expand upon them with another huge Takeover mission and a Roguelite style Side Hustle!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Before we start, let's do a quick recap of where we've been, as well as where we are.


In Chapter Zero, we debuted the game with a huge offering of content, and spent weeks (and months) ironing out systems and overhauling them based on community feedback. From there, we were able to prioritise content based on the loudest feedback, which in turn lead to Chapter One


Chapter One came with more missions, the first strike at the Mayors inner circle via the Maude Boss fight, and systems to allow players to upgrade how much cash and items they can hold. We added new repeatable activities, as well as the ability to take your Homies with you throughout the city.

One of the more clear pieces of feedback was a frustration with the wait between these massive drops of content, and we agreed. Why sit on a tangible upgrade to a system while we're finishing the rest, if we can just put them out as we're happy. So we took that tact with Chapter Two.



Throughout Chapter Two's development we focused on improving the vehicle systems and how you engage with them, as well as dropping in content to other pre-existing mechanics. Along the way we added new systems such as Fast Travel, the Two Wheeled Vehicles and the new First Player Experience. Rounding it off with the new concept of Side Hustles, we introduced ShipPost the Courier Side Hustle, added the Mod Shop to garages so you could customise your vehicles, overhauled the Vehicle Damage system and Stealing methods, along with a ton of extra content.

So now, Chapter Three:

On our lead up to Chapter Three we brought you the New Island: LaGordo Valley, a beautiful new spot in the north which featured more landscape and a different feeling compared to the big city life of Rockhaven. We overhauled the combat system introducing the ability to Block and Dash, allowing you to retaliate blocked damage and reset cooldowns on successfully dodged attacks, along with castbars to show you what the enemy is thinking. The second Side Hustle: WTF3K, a Drone Racing league, made its debut. Full Controller Support was added along with some big reworks on the UI screens that needed it the most. And of course a ton more improvements, missions and other content were added.

But enough of the old news, what's new today? Let's take a look:

[h2]Takeover 2: MOVR HQ[/h2]


The long awaited follow up to the large Takeover Mission from Chapter One is here, Takeover 2: MOVR HQ. Meet Memphis, an ex-wrestler handpicked by the Mayor to lead the MOVR force. Memphis continues to live in kayfabe and has no idea his real responsibilities or goals, so he's converted the MOVR base into a giant wrestling promotion: one you'll get to take part in!



MOVR HQ is our largest mission yet, and one we're very proud of. You'll scope the place out using a drone, take part in some platforming, sneak through the base, and yes: take part in a wrestling show where between rounds you'll select abilities to make yourself overpowered.



As with the first Takeover, make sure you have at least 3 levelled up Homies (or co-op friends) willing to come for the ride, as you'll certainly need them to take on the combat challenges and Memphis himself in our most difficult boss fight yet.

Along with Memphis, you'll also be seeing a lot of two brand new enemy types:



[h3]MOVR LOSR[/h3]
Meet the losers of the MOVR HQ, the MOVR LOSRs. These dorks are meek little punching bags not just for the MOVR team itself but for you as well! We're told it gets better once you leave school, maybe that's true for some but not for these guys. You'll get a sense of pent up rage when they start throwing their items at you or when they wanna get real nasty it's fireworks time, literally.



Their fireworks will light up the floor around you and your only option is to get out of the way. When they're not throwing a tantrum they can also benefit their colleagues by deploying a healing robot. So make sure you get to the LOSRs quick, they won't put up much of a fight. Also, be sure to use your dodge to close ground on them, as LOSR's love to run away when you get close.



[h3]MOVR BRUISR[/h3]
On the opposite side of the spectrum are the big boys, the MOVR BRUISRs. This is what happens when you inject Goorana into your veins. An experiment gone right? Depends who you ask. Much bigger and scarier than the LOSRs or even the standard issue MOVRs, the BRUISRs have more health and a harder hit to boot. Don't make them mad or you're gonna witness them burst into a rage with a Ground Slam.


Marking the ground around you, you'll see where the BRUISR is going to smash down upon you. You'll want to dash out of the way to make it to safety.


A Running Charge is the other trick up their sleeve. Standing in the way will make sure you are the first to get ragdolled and set alight by the fire left on their trail. Sounds tough but with a bit of luck we're sure you'll manage.

With new Enemy Types being added, along with the last update's Combat Overhaul - it would make sense to create a new Side Hustle around this right?

[h2]Side Hustle: Metro Dungeon[/h2]


Introducing our third Side Hustle: Metro Dungeon, a roguelite experience fit to show off all things combat in It's Only Money. We're fans of the genre and with all the systems we've already developed for and surrounding the combat - it's simply just a thing that made a lot of sense to highlight everything that's available. Let's dig in:

Getting into Rockhaven's Underground Metro System is no easy feat, and neither is leaving it (unscathed at least). With the help of Nana and a funny little portal you can get sent to the Metro Dungeon whenever you please.

The task is simple, defeat the Waves of enemies in the Dungeon and bring back as many Goorana Crystals as you can for an increased reward.

However, it is important to note that visiting through the portal doesn't come without its quirks.



[h3]Milestones and Relics[/h3]
The first thing you are going to notice are the Milestone Relics. These are a strange fusion of a Trigger and an Effect that could potentially help you.

You'll have the choice of three Relics every second Milestone and a chance to reroll the selection pool if they don't suit your fighting style. The other two Milestones will grant you a choice of Milestone Moves.

Every Milestone the items hanging around the Dungeon will change around, keep that in mind.


[h3]Stat Upgrades[/h3]
After completing a wave you will get a choice of three Stat Upgrades. These will come in a variety of potency, so choose wisely.

Stat Upgrades can help in a number of ways: fight enemies quicker by becoming stronger, navigate the dungeon faster with increased movement stats or just make it easier on yourself by choosing stats that let you take more damage and afford more mistakes.

The choice is yours but think about how they might interact with your chosen Relics and Moves.



[h3]Goorana Crystals[/h3]
The whole reason anyone is even down there is to gather Goorana Crystals. This is the only place to gather this valuable resource and the Mayor has a monopoly on it.

The best way to get Goorana Crystals is to find the big crystals around the Dungeon and bash the heck out of them. However, enemies will tend to drop some when knocked out, and you can also recycle any Junk items at the Junk2Crystal Recycler if you can find it.

You can spend the Goorana Crystals in the Dungeon when Rerolling any selection pools for Relics, Moves or Upgrades between Waves. You can also use them to Respawn and escape out of the jail room incase things don't go your way, but the cost is hefty.

If you save them up and avoid using too many, then bringing them back after completing the dungeon run Nana will convert the Crystals into regular cash to use in Rockhaven.



[h3]Stuck Homies[/h3]
You will also occasionally find Stuck Homies in the Dungeon. Get them before the current Milestone is over or they won't come back.

Standing in the area of the Stuck Homie for long enough will help bring them in to start fighting with you. Homies in houses will come through first, so make sure your strongest ones are housed!

If you don't have any homies then random undercivilians will spawn in to help you.



[h3]Coming Home[/h3]
We haven't mentioned this yet, but you're not taking anything with you, to or from, this is a roguelite of course.

You will start with no Moves, no Buffs, no Items and you won't be bringing anything you grab back with you, Nana just wants the Goorana Crystals!

We can't wait to see what builds you create down in the Metro Dungeon, the highest damage amount from a single punch we've seen so far was just over 800... do you think can you beat that? Tell us how you get on in our Discord or in the Steam forums.



We've also gone through and fixed more bugs that were found along the way, and made tweaks that have had some good knock on effects.

If you're new, or you've been out of the loop for awhile feel free to check out some of the other updates we've done along the way to Chapter Three, including:

Combat Overhaul, New Island, Full Controller Support, Drone Racing & Map Overhaul

[h2]What's next[/h2]

As always, we're going to spend the next bit of time cleaning up any unforeseen bugs and touching up anything that's quick from your feedback. Considering the breadth of new content that's been added, we'll also be curious to see any performance impacts across the community. As always, share these reports with us and we'll hone in on the culprits. Once we're in the clear, a couple of us will be strapped to a plane and heading to another hemisphere.

[h3]Gamescom[/h3]
We had such a good time at PAX Australia in 2022, not only did we get to try Five Guys for the first time, we went back and ate there three more times! We also got to meet a ton of great people and show off the early development of the game. Now we're heading off to Germany in August for Gamescom and It's Only Money will be playable on the show floor. The amount of progress the game has made since PAX is something we're very proud of and we can't wait for more people to get their hands on it. We'll talk more about this closer to the date.

Of course more content is on the way, it never stops, we've got some great ideas we're really excited to get started on.

As always, thank you all for being on the ride of It's Only Money! In a lot of ways, we're just getting started, so buckle in for even more.

Hey, everyone!

It's time for another Chapter 3 update, and it's a heavy one! Let's get into the details.

NOTE: As we go forward, please check your controller/KBM bindings as new mechanics and button placements have been set as standard with the new combat pass. We've added Block to the button that would usually be "use item", and changed and added other features.

Combat Overhaul

From the early beginnings of It's Only Money, combat is something we've tinkered in the pursuit of a simple system that rewards players who spend the time to master a few basic concepts. Throughout Early Access, combat usually devolved into spamming one of two combat moves and hammering a ragdolled opponent with no thought behind it.

We don't want to lose the simplicity of our combat, but at the same time, having a fight with multiple enemies was usually an exercise in spamming and praying you didn't get hit. Today we're pleased to take a step forward in giving players the tools to mitigate damage, and have more of an idea what our AI are planning to do.


Blocking & Crushing

Blocking makes its debut in It's Only Money. It's a standard mechanic accessible at all times, meaning it's not a combat move. While holding block, you sacrifice stamina in the place of health, meaning, whatever damage you would have taken to health will eat out of your stamina bar instead. This is also true for AI opponents.



While you block damage, you'll also build up a "Retaliation" score. This represents the amount of damage you've taken. Your next punch, or combat move will add this damage as a bonus, encouraging quick counter attacks.



Getting damaged while at 0 stamina will force either the player or AI opponent to be "Crushed". While crushed, you can't sprint, jump or block for 5 seconds and you'll take increased damage. We find it's now incredibly fun to beat up on a MOVR, crush them, and send them flying with a well placed kick.

Dash



What's more, while blocking you can hold a movement direction and hit the jump button to Dash. This will give you some amount of invincibility frames to completely dodge an incoming attack. A perfect dodge will refill your stamina and reset the cooldown timer on your moves, so players who put in the effort to master this technique will be throwing out a TON of damage.

Reworked and Remade Animations

Punching will now drag your character toward your target, helping you hit your opponents more effectively. Additionally, the attacks have been reworked to make them feel more impactful, and the AI reactions and visual effects have had a huge amount of focus to make the fights super exciting.

Castbars



There's a lot of complexity to our AI opponents that we haven't done a great job of showcasing. With Castbars, you'll now see the thoughts and plans of your opponent as they fight.

A Blue Attack is something you can block.
A Red Attack is something you need to dodge (Blocking these will crush you)
A Grey Decision is the NPC deciding to use an item, deploy a machine, or loot something off the ground.

We find the castbars really interesting, and a player with a keen eye can now control a fight with a mob that would previously be very overwhelming.

We encourage feedback either here on Steam or on our Discord as it pertains to the new combat system, but we're very proud of where it's at. We think it's a more exciting, intelligent way to handle combat, however, less dexterous or younger players can still bop their way through a fight.


Full Controller Support



Great news! We finally spent the time to ensure full controller support over a range of devices. Hopefully no more pesky virtual cursors or unexpected behaviours when trying to play exclusively with a gamepad. Please try it out and let us know if we've missed anything, but we're really pleased with the result.

Overhauled Customisation Screens



Buying clothes, getting a haircut, opting into some plastic surgery and browsing your Wardrobe should now look a lot better and run a whole darn lot smoother as of this update. All customisation screens have had a rework, and we're hoping the information of what you own, or what you're going to buy is a lot more understandable and enjoyable to use. Let us know what you think!

Mini Bosses



Throughout Rockhaven you'll notice an unusual purple beam coming from the sky. In time, we'll learn more of what's causing this, but one thing's for certain: Anyone zapped with the beam suddenly grows in size and develops crazy mutations, like fire walking, or the ability to summon allies.

Mini Bosses are prowling the streets of Rockhaven, with a bunch of unusual abilities. If you want, feel free to test your might against them. If you leave victorious, you and your friends will be rewarded with a chest!

There's more to come down the road with the Mini Boss system, but we wanted to have them hit the streets ASAP and gather feedback from the community.

New Island: "La Gordo" "BETA"



Surprise! A whole new landmass just popped up out of nowhere. Welcome to LaGordo Valley, located north of Rockhaven, it's the polar opposite of the city. It's vast, full of nature, and it has a giant airfield located smack dab in the middle.

LaGordo isn't quite as dense or as polished as the city we've been working on for the past couple years, but we wanted to put this new landmass in players hands as soon as we could to gather feedback, and help us prepare to drop a whole bunch of content we're working on that take place in LaGordo.

That's not to say there's nothing in LaGordo yet, and curious players will find a bevy of properties to buy, garages to own, landmarks to discover, and of course, a new mission to introduce some of the weirder locals that live in the Valley. Expect LaGordo to keep getting updates to improve the set dressing, playability, lighting, spawning logic and content offerings going forward - this new island is definitely a work in progress!

New Mission: Open your Mind



Atop Mount Procrastination sits an interesting group dedicated to the art of doing nothing all day. Ingratiate yourself with this odd bunch and you might just learn a unique skill that'll truly pass the time away.

Improved Post Processing and Fog Before After

We've also touched up the post processing and fog around Rockhaven and LaGordo to help the city look its best, and with the new fog system there should be an appreciable performance benefit to lower end machines.

And as usual, a bunch of bug fixing and performance improvements!


Our continued thanks to those who thoroughly report their issues and help us identify the source of nasty bugs and unintended performance drops. We hope you'll continue helping us target these, and we hope you look forward to the next update very soon, which we're sure will be equally as dense as this one.

Much love, be safe!