Block by Block: Street Empire

This one’s not for squares.

Block by Block is a story-driven crime game. You start with a can of paint, your brother’s name on a street sign and nobody on your side. You finish with a crew, an enterprise and a name that rings all over the city. Or on the bunk under your father’s. Every choice you make carries all the way through.

THE STORY Nine years ago Pops got locked up. Three years ago your brother Dre got killed, and everybody said Ninth Street did it. Now you’re nineteen, two doors down from where you grew up, and you want to know who really took him. Five acts. More endings than one run will show you.

THE HUSTLE Put hustlers on corners and guards where the trouble is. Run the re-up from the plug in each hood. Every buyer walks up wanting one thing and walks off if you don’t have it. Watch your heat: push too hard and the cops sit on your corners, raid your people, open a case file with your name on it.

THE CREW Hire them, train them, make them. Every one of your people has a name, a story and a record: how long he’s been with you, the fights he won, the corners he held, who he pulled out. They talk to you every night. From Act 2 on they can die, and the crew remembers.

THE STREETS Take blocks in fights you watch and call yourself: push, hold, flank, swarm. Roll a car past their corner. When theirs comes past yours, tell your people to get down. Four sides of town, each with its own people, its own product and its own way of saying no.

THE LAW Get big and the feds get interested. A warrant puts you on the run. Jail puts you one bunk from Pops. RICO ends it. There’s always a way home, if you can pay for it.

ACT 1 IS FREE Act 1 is free. Acts 2 to 5 are one purchase, and your run picks up right where it stopped. No ads, no timers, no energy bars. The game saves on your phone after every day. Play it in English, Spanish, French or German.