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The Republia Times was nominated in two categories in 2013's Games for Change Awards, for "Best Gameplay" and "Most Significant Impact Developer". Gamasutra named The Republia Times in their "Best of Indie Games". Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku compared it to "something out of the book 1984" and thought that "despite being a somewhat simple game, The Republia Times is easy to pick up and provocative-especially once you get to the twist".
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Rock, Paper, Shotgun called The Republia Times "Simple and not especially challenging (as only doing exactly what you're ordered to generally tends to be), it's compulsive and sharp regardless". It was his first Flash game, and he called Flash debugging "a nightmare". The Republia Times was developed by Lucas Pope, as a warm up for Ludum Dare 23, a game jam held April 20–23, 2012. The player must carefully choose which stories to publish, as the government is holding the editor's family hostage. Just like in Papers, Please, you have a family cared for by the nation. The protagonist is the editor-in-chief in a very watchful nation at war with Antegria in addition to internal conflicts with rebels, called terrorists by the government in news articles. The player has to balance publishing pro-government stories to convince a skeptical public to support the oppressive government, while also publishing popular gossip stories to increase readership. The first, finished just a year before the release of Papers, Please is The Republia Times. The player determines which stories are included in each day's issue of the Times, and how much prominence each story receives. The player takes on the role of the news editor of The Republia Times, a leading newspaper in the fictional authoritarian nation of Republia.