VN - Ren'Py - The East Block [v0.6.2] [Bobbyboy Productions]

One of the top ten ero games I've played, and we are not even halfway in the game development (0.6).
The dialogue between the couple is loving and caring, which makes us care for the Li (Kathryn). Kat. expresses her excitement and pleasure which she derives from fulfilling her boyfriends sharing fantasies. Basically making her boyfriend happy and horny makes her happy and horny. Which is a universal recipe for success in any romantic relationship. The game also presents us with erotic teasing and cliffhangers.
The game has flaws, mainly due to the lack of choice regarding certain events, but nothing so serious that it can't be overlooked at this point.
One thing that could possibly derail things in the future is the introduction of a mysterious chemical compound that people are unknowingly being affected by (sexually). We know very little about how this chemical affects the main characters yet. Hopefully the player will have the choice to retain the free will of the characters.
Having revealed some of the sexual past of Kat. may also ruffle some feathers.
Other than that i see smooth sailing and a great future for this game and it's developer.

The description says "Your decisions will shape the story," but I haven't seen much evidence of that after several updates and a year of development. As of version 0.6, I have encountered one instance where a choice was grayed out because I made made only hotwife choices. If I avoided all hotwife choices, there was one short exchange where the MC yelled at an interloper instead of having the option for them to join the action. Neither scene had a long-term impact on the story.

The actions the player can take also boil down to two choices, which we can paraphrase as "do the hotwife stuff" or "skip that and therefore play a much shorter game." There's a lot of hotwife content because the girlfriend puts up only token resistance. So the option of fidelity mentioned in the game's description doesn't seem to be a serious one. It offers no benefits that I can see. It basically means that you'll experience less of the game.

The girlfriend is also conveniently down to experiment as the story begins. There are no real boundaries to overcome, no sexual awakening to discover, no corruption to attempt. The MC himself never really examines why he feels the way he does. He just gives her a series of thirsty suggestions that his girlfriend will rarely question for more than a minute. She just seems to exist as a tool to explore a fantasy, rather than having a sexual identity of her own that anyone needs to contend with.

Last but not least, the sex scenes were impacted by stiff animations, basic angles, and a general lack of heat. I don't rag on people too much about animations, because they're actually a major pain in the ass to do even halfway decently in Daz 3D (where all these scene renders are usually assembled). But it's something to be aware of if you've been spoiled by something like Being a DIK or Desert Stalker.

This is a better AVN than most of them out there. Main reasons are; interesting story, good humor - will have you chucking to yourself quite a few times - better than average plot lines and pursuable, attractive characters. All of this incentivizes the player to read through it all and engage with the game. Lewd scenes are tasteful and just often enough to not turn this game into a pure porn game. The quality of renders and animations are, again, better than most of the AVN’s out there. The developers have been keeping an acceptable pace of delivering updates and they seem to have it together regarding the whole story where things are falling into their places nicely. This game also gives me the feeling that the developers do not take this game too seriously in a good way, therefore keeping it enjoyable and interesting. I highly recommend it and think this game needs the support of the players.

Started out strong, devolved into choicless trash.
One tragic downfall.
The following contains mild spoilers.

Graphics are good, the animations are ok as well.

The sound is fitting, although the male moaning is on the sound slider instead of the voice slider, so I can't say anything about those (turned them off immediately).

The main characters in the game, Luke and Kathleen, are both interesting characters.
Kathleen is the hotwife and fits both in terms of personality and appearance. From the beginning of the game she seems to be an easy-going but rather traditional woman in terms of sex.
Luke is her loving partner and the main source of kinks in the relationship. As the player we make choices for both of them, the focus is clearly on Lukes perspective.

The story starts with some major decisions regarding the NTR/NTS kinks Luke has. The more you decide to encourage Kathleen to be naughty, the more she reacts to situations in a adventurous way on her own.
So far the scenes are completely avoidable and are guided by the players decision. There is an early scene where she kisses someone without player input, which should've been a warning sign, but overall it was forgiveable.

The plot takes multiple dark turns and more and more kinks start to be forced onto the player. Decisions lose any impact, Kathleen starts to strip and pose before people even on the pure non-NTR route, after the player explicitly decided against that.
From here on out you're forced to let Kathleen pose in front of the camera and the disgusting men that she already kissed in the park (the warning sign mentioned above), again naked against the player's choice. The story gets even darker now (rape warning) and I decided to stop here and try the NTR variations.

Going through the NTR route was even worse (I don't call it NTS at this point anymore because it is against player choices).
While you again have plenty of choices in the beginning of the game, the further you progress the less control you have. It climaxes in a flashback scene where you're aroused by your "friend" starting to rape Kathleen (it didn't happen as far as we know). Again I stopped and deleted this game immediately.

I have no clue why it went downhill like that. The beginning of the game, that I mentioned over and over, promised so much control and choices, to pair Kathleen with characters you like, make her do kinks you enjoy. Then it starts to take these choices away and even taunts you several times with choices that it then ignores.

There is a lot to repair and since the dev didn't acknowledge any problems in the past, I doubt this will be playable anytime soon. It is a shame.

[Review of version 0.5]
The East Block is the "classic" tale of corruption, where two souls very much in love find themselves in a new environment filled with temptations on all sides - will you let the happy couple fall to their lustful urges or help keep them together through thick & thin?
Positives:

• Renders: Great quality renders (4/5), not the best you've ever probably seen. However, this fact does not hinder the experience, as the models are beautiful to look at, and more importantly - allow frequent updates.
• Story: This tale of corruption is on the slower side, but plenty of action is available before Kathryn takes the final plunge and actually has sex with someone else. The dev promises actual consequences for the actions you've chosen during the game (Luke's and Kathryn's), some of which includes true NTR and pregnancy. Other than that, dialogue is decent (not the best, again), and there are very few grammatical errors. Your eyes won't be bleeding in agony while enjoying this game, so feel free to take the time to read properly.
• Kinky: the game contains (or will contain) fetishes like Netorare, Netorase, Sharing, Corruption, Pregnancy, Cuckolding - all depending on your choices.

Negatives:

• No animations. Instead, they are pseudo-replaced with quickly alternating still frames, which are decent, but clearly not the same thing. If the absence of these allows the developer to maintain their 2-month update schedule, I am all for it.
• Kathryn (the female MC) started out as relatively naive girl, but recent updates have revealed that she has a very raunchy past as a college student, before meeting Luke. Normally this wouldn't be a big issue, as noone expected her to be a nun, but her naivety at the start of this game loses all meaning when her naughty past has been described (by the dev himself) as "very wild". Dev claims she left that life behind when she met the male MC, Luke, but we all know that the corruption aspect only really works on the innocent - not born-again virgins. A disappointment to be sure. There is even a prequel game planned that will showcase Kathryn's wild younger years, not sure why that would ever be worth of production, as it doesn't look like it will offer anything that games like Anna's Exciting Affection or Jennifer's Life don't already do - unless you are really that into Kathryn's model.

Overall, The East Block attempts and succeeds at telling a captivating corruption of a young couple, with - according to me - major hiccups. I give it a 4-star review regardless, because you can just ignore the planned prequel and ingame options that go contrary to the established narrative.

It's the best ntr game I've played! (And I've played a lottt)
The pace is really perfect, not too fast and not too slow.
Characters look beautiful.
Situations and scenes are super hot!
I definitely recommend this game to all ntr lovers!
Keep up ur excellent work, thank u <3

This is a great NTR/NTS game it has a good number of choices, and the characters feel like they could be real people.

The writing especially is phenomenal, and the pacing is really good.
I highly recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of NTS and NTR.

You know what is the best part of NTR genre? It's the dumb thing, stupid thing that happened somehow you can related, somehow in relationship it's understandable. It's something deep in Japanese eroge culture that now popular in many 18 plus games.
If you want a game that mostly make sense in story, find something like this. Just very "default" setting for NTR happened, it's short and you can have a good time not to grindy like some other "Survival VNs" that not respect your time. Moreover, it's not forcing, it's avoidable. But if you want something pure, it's just not for you.

This AVN started with some potential, but it has quickly devolved into just another corruption game where the cuck is completely helpless, the girlfriend is a complete moron and every dude is a creep.

There are some unavoidable situations where our mensa candidate of a GF finds herself stroking off two creeps, letting some stranger kiss her in the park or partially exposing herself during a work, video conference. I know this is just an AVN and I know it's not real life, but I want my stories to have a foot in reality. I can handle a few out of the ordinary situations and I realize porn has just as many outlandish situations, but I do not watch porn for the "story" so I have zero expectations.

If you could care less about the story, and just want to watch a female moron and her cuck of a husband, then you will probably like this AVN. If you are looking for any kind of story with a foot or two in reality, then move along. Nothing to see here.

This is an outstanding AVN! Outstanding!

The story is really really good. You become invested in the story and the choices matter!

You'll want to replay the scenes and then go down different routes. The renders are hot, and animations are very well done. The music is really good as well.

There is tension in this story. Mystery. Funny moments, and heartbreaking moments as well. You've got direct guidance on how corrupted you want these characters to become. Again, the choices really do matter here.

I'm having a blast and have got my fingers crossed that we'll get some pregnancy options at or near the end of this journey.

And I agree with the other reviews - Character development and corruption done right with near perfect pacing.

Major props to the developer. Very well done, sir. This is a top AVN for me and one I eagerly await updates to.

Very good story line, great character development, and unpredictable. Good amount of content so far. Plenty of lewdness, with some control of how far things go.
Well worth support. Curious to see how this one progresses.

One of the best games in terms of storytelling, character development, and especially the pacing in corrupting the female protagonist. In fact I'm going to support him to see if he's able to keep this great momentum

Gonna keep this one short. One of the best NTR games available so far, great corruption format in my opinion.

I just hope from the bottom of my heart that the MC doesn't go full beta on this one, too many of those games already.

Excellent game, the FMC is very pretty and the plot is great. Love the hobo character it is not something very often see. I cannot wait until the next update.

btw, would it be possible to include a replay gallery in the future?

Great game, it doesn't excel in any area but the sum of all it's parts is just really good.

Personally i like that the direction the game is taking, leaning more into a netorase story where both have a say in what happens. And overall choices in the game feel decent, it doesn't feel like a vn where all the choices are meaningless or just put you on another path for the rest of the game.

Releases have been consistent and a dev well worth supporting .

This is a very, very interesting and fascinating game!
I played it and enjoyed its options and the paths the players will take.
The game offers a lot of side stories and can fascinate you.

The only drawback I see is that the game only gives options
where Katrin has to ask her boyfriend, Luke, about everything she goes through.

It would be great to see more options where Kathrine can make decisions on her own,
adding a sense of empowerment to the gameplay.

Great game so far. Has the makings to become one of the best NTR games. So far not much content yet especially NTR scenes, but we hope that much more will be released soon. Dialogues, characters and graphics stand at the highest level. Let's hope that more and more often content lands on the site!

Enjoyable slow(ish) corruption of the main lady character (for a porn game anyway) but no real consequences considering the 'bad' people she interacts with when she does not comply (or her sis for that matter). Not sure whether intended but I can see loads of potential paths opening for the MC.
Good graphics.
Looking forward to what happens next.

Cool plot, things escalating not too fast but intensive, mostly realistic character's behavor. Many choices making plausible illusion of controlling situation (you don't have serious deferences in general yet, but details is important for stories like that).

The East Block is a swinging focused VN centered around a dedicated couple and the monster inside the boy's head.

When I say swinging focused, I do not lie. If that's not your thing, you're wasting your time here. There's very little non-sharing/cheating content so if that's not your thing, pack your bags and move on.

With that out of the way, it does the swinging thing pretty well. The story is definitely about that dangerous line between excitement and guilt that good swinging style stories really seek to play with. I'm personally a fan of how flexible so many of the scenes are. If you want the pretty girl to be seen but not touched, you can do that. If you find one of the guys repulsive and don't want to share, you can do that. If you want to shred her inhibitions and whore her out to anyone and everyone, the story is slowly pushing towards an option for that too.

I find the overall story a little unambitious. I know how massive and sprawling a story can become when you start allowing players to dramatically change the plot, but locking the MC in with Bad Boss feels weak. The dude is a scumbag, so if the MC repudiates him it only makes sense for the MC to start working against him. Instead we're currently locked into this weird working for him but not working for him, pissing him off but not enough to get fired loop. I suppose it would be a huge amount of effort to make two separate story lines for it though, so I definitely understand the choice.

The visuals are pretty good, but the animations are less than stellar. I can't really recommend the game to people who are looking to get a quick fap off, as the eroticism is really derived from the slow burn will she, won't she tension. Like I said earlier, get your swing on or get out.

Overall, The East Block is pretty decent so far, but lacking a bit too much in the animations and story for me to wholeheartedly endorse it. That said, as a lover of swinging and exhibitionism, I'll be following it none the less. If those are your kinks, you'll find some fun here.