The game seems like a highly original concept; what is the inspiration behind the game-play, and what are your aims in creating this experience?

The inspiration from many different sources: books, films, real world events and board games. The initial thought first came into my head when I played the classic board game Junta for the first time with friends at University. There was also the brilliant first edition of Illuminati, a cool card game about secret societies and networks. Then on the simulation side I had ideas for trying to create something much more intricate and detailed than I had ever been involved in (for example with Theme Park) or seen done before (for example Sim City 2000). Part of this was fueled by the seminal book Crowds and Power by Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti, which describes the whole of human history in terms of crowds and mob power, something that is central to some of the macro-behaviours we have in the AI of Republic. Aside from that, we've been heavily influenced by real world events such as the 1991 Communist uprising in Russia. And trying to recreate the epic nature of these sorts of events and put the player in them as the center of attention is a large part of the vision behind the game.

Plot. Will there be some form of premise, or story? How will this fit in with the players progress?

Republic is totally a freeform game with a rich environment for the player to explore. There is no explicit story as such but in some sense the player is creating their own epic story by choosing their own unique path to power. There will, however, be occasional big set piece simulation events that drive the game world forward or affect the gameplay in some major way. These will be different each time the player plays and predicated on how and what the player is doing.