Hey, just discovered this site from reddit - I'm a first year sophomore English teacher & I realized teaching The Republia Times would be an excellent way to sum up themes we'd been discussing as we read Elie Wiesel's Night (a holocaust memoir), especially the influence of propaganda and what it costs to stay alive in an unjust system. My kids really enjoyed the game & answering the handout, although I did tweak the lesson's overall focus a bit. Some feedback I have would be that for many of my kids, getting to the 5th day where the rebels begin to show up was a difficult task in and of itself. If I'd had total control of the game, I would have demoed the first few days in front of the class & then had them start from day 3. They enjoyed learning with the game and it went well, so I decided to extend our discussion of media manipulation with the "Bad News" game as well. This one I created my own presentation and materials for, but the fact that the games are so similar (with a few important differences) made for a nice compare/contrast.
Thanks for the materials, these games have been successful so far!
I definitely noticed that Republia can be challenging as well. There's no real way to save the game, but maybe demoing it like you said and having the class copy your actions on their copy of the game may help? I'll definitely try that next time I play it.