The problem with a commissary
The first version of CELLBLOCK had a currency. Inmates wanted things, you had a budget, and you spent it. It worked, and it was boring. The moment a number sits between you and another character, every interaction becomes a transaction you can solve with arithmetic. You stop looking at the person and start looking at the balance.
What replaced it
So the money came out entirely. Now an inmate sends a request — a phone call, food, yard time, contraband — and you either grant it or you do not. Granting banks trust. Denying is free, but it drops her compliance. There is nothing to spend and nothing to save. What accumulates instead is debt, and debt behaves differently from currency: it is owed by a specific person, it does not transfer, and it cannot be topped up.
Escalation had to be automatic
Once the economy is debt, a cash-in button stops making sense. You cannot spend a favour someone owes you like a coin. So tier crossings became automatic: bank enough trust past the threshold, hold enough compliance, and she moves from Locked to Flirt to Hands and onward on her own. The player never presses a button labelled escalate. It happens because of how you have been treating her, which is the point.
Denial became a tool
The unexpected result is that saying no got interesting. In a currency economy, refusing a request is just declining to spend. In a debt economy, granting everything strips you of the only leverage you have. New players tend to say yes to everything for the first few shifts because it feels efficient, then wonder why nothing is progressing. The answer is that they gave it all away.
The intake desk exists for the same reason
One new inmate is booked per day, and before you patrol she sits across from you at the booking desk. You ask questions, she answers, and some of those answers contradict her file. Marin — the first arrival — says her fraud charge was "just the once" when the file reads multiple counts. Catch it and she starts the night already owing you double. It is the strongest opening position in the game, and it costs nothing but reading the file before you start asking.
What it cost
Removing money made the game harder to explain in one line and harder to tune. There is no difficulty slider hiding in a price list. Every balance change has to happen in trust rates, compliance multipliers and tier thresholds, per character. That is more work than editing a number in a shop. It is also the reason the relationships feel earned rather than purchased.