Undercitizens, the day is here.
It's Only Money is graduating from Early Access to a 1.0 release, and with this update comes a lot of features we're excited to discuss. Before we tuck in to the new stuff, we'd like to spend a moment reminiscing of our Early Access journey.
Since our launch into Early Access with Chapter Zero, we've gathered feedback and ideas from the community and divvied big ticket items into major updates, culminating with a new chapter full of major improvements and new systems.
Whether it's the earliest overhaul of the vitals system, improved house customisation systems, vehicle purchasing or even hidden collectables like the Bogan Balloons, we've had a ton of fun taking your feedback and doing our best turning them into tangible features in It's Only Money.
Additionally, when we get reports for crashing and performance issues, we've done our best to assess and fix where possible - and we understand, there's always more to do. We encourage those reports to keep coming.
All that to say, thank you for joining us on our journey so far. Your help as a community has been invaluable and we truly hope at some point along the Early Access timeline we've made one or two things that you've really loved in Rockhaven.
With all that out of the way, let's dig into some of the key content and features that arrive with the 1.0 update:
Takeover: Rockhaven City
The Mayor arc is coming to a close. It's time to take the fight directly to that pesky little Mayor who threw you and many others underground. As is tradition for Takeover missions, these are our larger more cinematic missions that deliver story exposition and new mechanics.
We don't want to spoil too much about this one other than it's an explosive resolution to the story that started in Chapter Zero. Give that Mayor one from us.
EXP System and Modifiers
With our work in Chapter Three, we explored rogue-like elements with the Metro Dungeon and MOVR HQ Takeover. We found it a lot of fun to break the game with OP stats and abilities and we thought why not give the players the power in general. Starting today, almost everything you do in the city will reward some EXP points, and once you earn enough you'll gain a stat point. These can be spent on a multitude of persistent statistics like unarmed damage, jump height or even movement speed. The more you play, the more brokenly powerful you'll become! We've had a ton of fun messing with different builds and we're looking forward to seeing the inevitable one-punch-man build someone'll make.
It's not just inherent power that we put in your control. Introducing Modifiers! These are fun little effects that modify your game play in humorous or novel ways. Some highlights include anti-grav knockout, which sends enemies into orbit upon a KO hit, or allergy hit, which causes an enemies head to grow with every hit. Others, like 12 FPS or Baby Mode are fun visual twists that allow you to see the game in a new way.
Every 10 levels you earn you'll unlock a new modifier slot, so it's completely possible to mix and match a bunch and make It's Only Money look like some kind of hacked-up nightmare. Do your thing!
Some time ago, we added mini-bosses that patrol the streets. We conveyed that eventually they'll have a fun purpose, well, today is that day! Now when you knock out mini-bosses, you'll unlock DNA points toward one of the aforementioned modifiers, and there's a chance to get DNA points from chests, too. If you've got your eye on a particular modifier, hunt for those purple beams throughout Rockhaven - there'll be a miniboss waiting there!
Odd Jobs!
Need cash, quick? Upon completion of Takeover: Rockhaven, you'll unlock the Odd Jobs application. Players who've played the Minimum Wage demo will be familiar with this system, but for the uninitiated, Odd Jobs will continually spin up smaller dynamic missions. In essence, you'll never not have something to do in It's Only Money. Whether it's small combat encounters, or some sightseeing, you'll be paid for your time, and of course, all of this is playable in Multiplayer.
Radio and audio Overhaul
Rockhaven FM is now broadcasting over the airwaves in Rockhaven! That's right, we have some fully voiced radio segments including our favorite german fashion designer, DJ Steezy. He'll comment on the absurdity of the city in general, while interspersed with adverts from various brands throughout Rockhaven. Not only that, but some general SFX passes have been done to the world. We hope your ears appreciate the changes.
New Collectables: EBE's children
EBE's not a great Alien. He has problems, this we know. One of his problems is sending human rap records back to his family on Zeta Reticuli. Unfortunately for him, his children are now anti-authority and have run away from their mother's ship. It's up to you to scour Rockhaven and return EBE's kids to the craft before they start committing crimes. We can't be having that in Rockhaven. There's 33 to collect, and if you listen close enough, you'll hear them rapping before they lock eyes with you.
Steam Achievements, and more!
And of course, with 1.0 comes the addition of Steam Achievements The currently available Steam Achievements are of two schools of design, you'll earn 1 for each story Takeover completed, and the others are gated behind Wiener badge progress. We wanted to allow players to engage with the activities they liked to earn the achievements, and not be forced into any one avenue to earn that sweet 100% completion.
Additionally, there's been a ton of smaller QOL and bug fixes as we've been making this batch of content, and a general tidy up on some of the performance issues we've been able to replicate.
Where to from here?
Of course, we'll be on deck ready to receive more reports and fix up anything we've missed, and we have some smaller additions we'd like to make with our inevitable hotfixes. Beyond that, the team has earned some much needed rest, but before we do any of that, we once again feel it's important to say:
Thank you for joining us on this journey. The development thus far has been intense, at times overwhelming, but satisfying and something we're really proud of as a team. For a team of five from the bottom of the world, we hope you feel that we've punched above our weight class. We're super grateful to all of you who've joined along the path, or if you're just checking it out today.
We'll talk to you when we drop that first inevitable hotfix.
