It's Only Money News

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!

Join us in celebrating Firestoke's very first Publisher Sale on Steam with some scorching (sorry, we couldn't resist) discounts of up to 67%! This event features our entire catalogue including newly released gems like Hauntii. Whether you're into beautiful adventures, strategic tower defense, or fast-paced platforming, we've got you covered.

In addition to the games themselves, we're offering discounts on DLCs and Soundtracks, so you can enhance your gaming experience even further! Joy Spark - Initiated!

Featured Games on Sale:

Hauntii
A beguiling adventure where you uncover the secrets of an expansive and mysterious world, haunting both the environment and its denizens to craft ingenious solutions to the many challenges that await.

It's Only Money
The mayor of Rockhaven threw you down a hole into the Undercity. Why? Net worth too low. In this 1-4 player low-life simulation, emerge to the surface to steal from the rich, fight tycoons and reclaim the city block by block. Buy houses, businesses and whatever your materialistic heart desires!

Bish Bash Bots
Immerse yourself in a unique mix of casual tower defense strategy and all-out brawling action. Team up in couch co-op / online play or go it alone and fight to save the world by building upgradable turrets, unlocking gadgets, and bashing bots with giant hammers.

Falling Out
Experience a light-hearted roguelite platformer where you take control of an oddball couple on a holiday from hell. Work together as you navigate randomly generated temples, dodging traps, slaying enemies, and crafting weapons in an attempt to escape before the temple floods.

Planet Cube: Edge
Get ready for high-speed adventuring set in a hand-crafted pixel art world, filled with precision platforming and thrills. Planet Cube is being invaded, and it's up to you to run, gun, jump, and dash your way through an underwater science complex, collecting firepower to turn the tables on a mysterious aggressor.

Howdy everyone,

We're back with another update! We're really pleased with the new Side Hustle system which debuted in the Chapter 2 major update. We intend to overhaul some older content to fit this new system, but additionally, it's a great new way for us to create businesses to buy and play mini-games in for some repeatable cash.

Today we're adding another one:

Side Hustle: Drone Racing





After you've completed Beggar King's mission "New Whip", you'll have a mission sitting there from S1ONE, the proprietor of "WTF3K", or Way Too Fast 3000, Rockhaven's premier Drone Racing league. Settled atop the Palms Mall in the middle of the city, contestants launch their drones and battle for the fastest time among several racing tracks (with more to come!)

Buy your membership and you'll get to compete either alone against times set by fellow pilots, or if you bring friends you can have a head-to-head hotlap experience to see who can shave off precious seconds. Of course, like all Side Hustles, the more you play, the more rewards you'll earn including vehicle wraps, clothing, AsbestOS placeables, and more cash every time you play.







Some examples of the new unlockables from WTF3K, including a totally not creepy headset and polygonal hoodie and new car wrap...

New Mission: Towing Time



Once you purchase your membership, another mission awaits! Fellow racer BENJ1 needs energy drinks, and he's too lazy to walk outside. Using a jerry rigged drone, steal Goorana machines from the streets and bring them to the rooftop to satisfy his cravings.

Map Overhaul and in-game Compass



Destinations has had a huge overhaul to help players navigate the city much easier. Some key highlights include:

- The ability to set custom waypoint markers from the Destinations application
- Category filters to help find specific types of shops or locations
- City Districts are now viewable
- A new birdseye angle when viewing the map from afar, pulling into isometric as you zoom in on a location
- Improved navigation for both Keyboard+Mouse and Controller
- A slew of new icons and usability reworks to help make information more readable.



Additionally, there's a new compass present in-game to help track down friends, custom waypoints, mission markers or even hint at undiscovered locations nearby.



Oh, and we added double jump



Some walls and ledges are just annoying, we get it. Now everyone has access to a double jump to help navigate around the streets and alleys, and inevitably let you access places we never intended - but hey, that's fun.

As we move forward, Doctor Powick will offer some upgrades to make your jump even crazier..

All this and some bug fixes, performance improvements and smaller quality of life changes are going out now!

Of course, we're still working on more updates on our road to Chapter Three, and we think some of the upcoming content will be some of the most exciting yet. Spoiler alert: The reworked map is sure going to be useful soon...

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Have a great week, and thanks for continuing to support It's Only Money!

Hey everyone,

The day's finally here: We've finally put a bow on the vehicle focused set of updates, culminating in the cleverly named "Chapter Two". Unlike previous updates, our road to Chapter Two had instead been focused on delivering larger, more meaningful updates and content instead of saving it for one massive patch, so a lot of veteran players will be familiar with the changes, however, that doesn't mean there's not some substantial changes at hand specifically in this update.

Before we kick in, let's take a quick recap at 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've focused on improving the vehicle systems and how you engage with them, as well as dropping in content to other pre-existing mechanics. Players keeping up with IOM will have already engaged with new systems such as Fast Travel, the Two Wheeled Vehicles and even the new First Player Experience, but todays update is an exciting one we've been waiting to share. Let's tuck into the details:

Side Hustle: Courier



Our first Side Hustle: Courier is available today. Open GetAJob and find Jason (Must have completed Beggar King's sixth mission to see this). He'll introduce you to "Ship Post", a renegade postal service that steals packages from the Mayors overpriced delivery fleet, and delivers the packages to the people at a more reasonable clip. This of course, aligns with the Undercity's goals, and Jason is more than happy to have you invest in the company.



Once invested, you can do shifts for the company! You'll spawn somewhere in world on a brand new vehicle, the "Feijoa Scooter". Once your shift begins, you'll need to drive and hop around gathering up packages, and bringing them back to the Ship Post van. All the while you'll need to avoid MOVX vans trying to run you down and topple your stack of packages. The more packages you deliver, the more money you'll have after your shift is done.



Do some sweet 360s if you like

We've internally found this a great way to quickly add some cash to your reserves, and further, the more you engage with the activity, the more REP you'll build (similar to the Slimeway). As you climb rep levels you'll earn rewards such as increased base pay, clothing, vehicle skins and once you hit the esteemed level 10, Ship Post will have a vault that fills up with cash once every day. Either talk to Jason to start a shift whenever you feel like it, or quickly access it from GetAJob!

And of course, this is all playable in co-op online!

The Side Hustle system is one we're particularly excited about, as we can come up with more minigames and give players a rewarding path to grind out. It'll also help us contextualise and improve rewards for previous minigames we've come up with along the way. Let us know what you think, and as always, give us feedback here on Steam or in the Discord channel.


Vehicle Customization



Finally, the ability to make the most messed up ride in all of Rockhaven exists! If you own a garage and a vehicle (or perhaps even a fleet), make a bee-line back to one of your garages. Assign a vehicle to a podium, and interact with the new mod bench next to your park. From here, you'll be able to see a huge list of parts you can apply to the ride of your choice.



Keen eyes might notice that a lot (perhaps even all) parts are greyed out. Undercitizen, it's on you to take back to the streets and start crushing cars! As you run past cars you'll now notice a wee UI Popup illustrating what upgrades said car has applied. If you spot something you like, jack the car and take it to your nearest wheelies crusher. When you crush it, you have a chance to unlock one of the parts. The more damage the car has, the lower the chance of receiving a part, so make sure you look after the whip on the way to Wheelies.



Customisation parts include:

- Headlight Color
- Neons
- Paintjobs
- Different Radio Head Units (Including a scary bass boosted one that might ruin your hearing)
- Utilities (Such as seatbelts to stop you flying, or NOS and Hydraulics for jumps)
- Hood and rear ornaments
- Engine Upgrades
- Turbos
- Tire compounds
- Horn sounds



This is the part where we have a mathematically derived marketing point that says there's over 8 billion possible combinations between parts and vehicles, but in essence, it's just a cool system, and one we think you'll enjoy playing with. Like every other part of the game, expect there to be tons of parts and paints added over the course of updates going forward. Show us what kind of weird and cool cars you come up with!

Side Note: If you don't equip a seatbelt in the Utility slot, take care when crashing into things or you know, you'll go flying.



Overhauled Vehicle Stealing:



Previously to open up a locked vehicle and start it without earning bounty required having screwdrivers and pliers on hand, and then initiating in mini-games that a lot of our players felt weren't overly engaging. A new system makes its debut! Now, you don't need any tools to bust open a car and jack it. Just approach a car, hit E and mash your way to getting the car open and started. Doing it this way will increase your bounty and damage the car a little, so be careful if you're taking it to Wheelies to steal a modification.

However, if you have screwdrivers on hand, they'll be automatically consumed when attempting to unlock a car. This'll not only speed up the process of stealing the vehicle, but it won't damage it or cause a bounty increase.

Damage Overhaul:



New VFX, particles and visible damage that deforms the vehicles you're driving have also been touched on this update. No longer will cars bop around not showing any wear or tear, windows will break, doors will come lose, metal will crumple and grind against surfaces. This is a big one for general game feel.

New Welty Mission: Border Patrol



Welty and his gang, "NME" (No More Emus) want you to customize the lawnmower you've stolen for them and use it to spread propaganda throughout Green Island. Things take a turn when some of Welty's crazy ideas start to prove true..


Two new properties and a 4 Car Garage



Some more properties to buy up have been added to Rockhaven, including the Storeroom, an apartment located conveniently behind the Underpass Pawn. Directly opposite the Storeroom is the Underpass Garage, capable of storing up to 4 vehicles. Last but not least, the Container Compound, our first outside space you can customise and assign to a homie. We can't wait to see what kind of creations you come up with here.

There's also a whole ton of other additions and changes that've gone in this patch:

- New Powick Upgrades for wallet/carrying capacity size
- New Bank Card Tiers
- New Clothing and Chest Rewards
- A new apartment and garage
- Bug fixes
- New Vehicles around the city (All of which will become purchasable in future updates)

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 in Chapter Two, including:

Personal Valet, Purchasable Garages & Cars, Two Wheeled Vehicles, First Time User Experience, Fast Travel

What's next

As always, we're going to spend a week cleaning up any unforseen bugs and finishing off a few bits of content that we'll tuck into the game. After we're in the clear, the journey to Chapter Three begins.
While Chapter Two's main narrative addition touched on the opening of the game, with Three we intend to move the story forward once more.

If you've missed out on the recent news, we're now partnered with Firestoke. They're going to help us out to develop robust new content, but they're as committed as we are in acting on community feedback. We have an idea of where Chapter Three is going internally, but we'll be monitoring Steam Forums and Discord chat and working in suggestions that the community feels strongly about.

After our internal discussions, we'll start talking about our vision of Chapter Three, share it with everyone and immediately start hitting some content beats.

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.

How's it going everyone,

Time to hit our next stop along our path to Chapter Two with the addition of Motorcycles, bikes, some UI Improvements and a brand new first time user experience.



First Time User Experience

This is a big one! We've revamped the opening of the game to better explain mechanics, story elements and your place in the world of Rockhaven. It's packed full of new locations and fun cutscenes, as well as deeper story elements that help tie the various characters and ideas we've formulated during our Early Access adventure so far. We're really proud of this revamped portion of the game and we're hoping it'll help newer players fall in love with Rockhaven and its populace, and highlight what we love about our game moreso than the original opening.



Note: For current players who want to experience this, be sure to back your saves up first!

New Building: Marinara Complex



This gargantuan highrise behemoth of a building is home to various apartments, garages and other oddities awaiting discovery. In the coming weeks Marinara Complex will have new properties to purchase, but for now it's the staging ground of the aforementioned new player experience. More updates on that later!

New Dealership: Mid Life Motorcyles



The day has come! Motorbikes in Rockhaven! Available off rip are two variants:

The Tiger Gnocchi



Perfect for beginners and safety concious riders, the Tiger Gnocchi is a great entry point into two wheeled vehicular experiences.

The Hardy Peterson X



This road hog is the choice of motorcycle clubs and mid-life crisis experiences worldwide. Experience a gas guzzling engine that is equal parts intimidating and impractical.


The bikes are currently in a "first pass" state, and will receive a following update to address handling, sound and other aspects, so please leave us some feedback here on Steam or in the Discord channel if you'd like to see anything tweaked! We'll be on the lookout for suggestions and reports.

UI Improvements:



- Your wallet and bank maximums can now easily be viewed on the inventory screen and will reflect any upgraded maximum capacity from ATM upgrades or Dr Powicks research lab.

- Homie statistics now have an element to better explain what each statistic influences

Fast Travel: (TURD System)



A much requested feature, fast travel is now an option from the Undercity, or any properties you own that you've opened the pipe in. Select an applicable pipe, a destination, and you'll be shot through what is likely years worth of sewage. Worth the risk to save a bit of time, we're sure!

Car Headlights

A smaller touch, but cars now have automatic headlights that turn off and on in low light situations, such as night! More of these smaller vehicle improvements to come.

Engine Upgrade:

We've also done a lot of work on moving It's Only Money from Unreal Engine 5.0 to 5.3, and with it hopefully comes some appreciable performance improvements for players across the hardware spectrum. Let us know if there's anything broken, and as usual we'll tackle it ASAP.

Known Issues:

- The opening driving portion of the new player experience can dip in framerate for some players, but should correct itself as they progress through the parking complex. We suspect this is affecting players on a specific GPU driver version, so if this issue is present, feel free to progress through the mission, as it'll resolve itself, or update your driver and see if that helps. We're open to any reports or logs we can get our hands on in the Discord to better fix this issue.

- Maudes Dome in the boss fight won't raise or lower for some players, we're investigating the cause of this and expect to have it fixed in the next update

- Some players are having crashes, particularly when in vehicles around large gatherings of NPC's. We're trying to replicate this, and have some leads to a fix. If this happens to you, we'd appreciate any crash logs or information you could share. We will fix this as soon as we've isolated the cause.



What's next?

In our next update, we're going to tackle two exciting new features to round out Chapter Two's focus on vehicles:

Vehicle customisation: Any vehicle you've bought will be be able to be modified in a wide variety of ways, such as Turbos, Paintjobs, rims, better stereos, and much more. This isn't limited to just cars, bikes and other odd vehicles will all be modifiable. We're excited to see what kind of crazy combinations y'all come up with, and we'll share a deeper dive on this system soon.

Our first "Side Hustle": Courier Service. Side hustles will be an easily accessible way to grind out money, either solo or friends. Think of them as something halfway between a narrative mission and a business. The more you do a Side Hustle, the greater the rewards, including persistent cash raises and other cool exclusive goodies.

Beyond these two major features, there's some fun other bits of content and news on the way that we're sure will please the Rockhaven community, so until then, we'll talk soon, and keep us posted if anything needs fixing!