Solo HTML version 1.3 · Instructor guide
The Order Was Given
Created by Yoav Duman / יואב דומן
Students play Sasha, organizer of Youth, a legal opposition election campaign in fictional Lydora. Three planning and reply cycles lead to public forums, one controlled access comparison, and transfer to another town. This solo adaptation is separate from the original classroom simulation; it does not replace that group activity.
What students should be able to do
After playing, a learner should use revealed evidence to compare Government’s direct control of a public venue with an organization’s own resource decision; distinguish speaking opportunity from votes; isolate the effect of one changed access rule; revisit a forecast; and transfer the explanation conditionally when institutions are unknown. The game primes these distinctions. It does not teach or test the assigned article’s full explanation of authoritarian resilience.
Establish the political setting
Lydora is explicitly introduced as an authoritarian state with meaningful but heavily tilted elections. The ruling Unity Party has held national power for 18 years, dominates state institutions and national television, and uses selective administrative or police pressure against critics. Ari campaigns for Unity; Sasha organizes the legal Youth opposition campaign. Genuine incumbent support and active opposition coexist with these advantages. Sharing one terminal does not remove these national advantages. The four organizations have retained enough practical control to make their own forum arrangements tonight.
The setting is a supplied fictional premise, not a classification students must infer from one terminal restriction. The task is to explain which forms of control take effect, how other actors respond, and what remains unknown. Setting is always available in the utility bar and as an evidence source; short political context also appears in each conversation.
Prepare and distribute
Give each learner the standalone game HTML and your submission instructions. Students can play online from the activity page or download the self-contained HTML for offline play. Neither route needs an account or AI service. Browser saves are separate on each website; use a JSON backup to move work. Test opening, a JSON backup, and printing on a classroom device beforehand. The downloadable HTML report is an output, not the playable game.
Choose For Class for required responses, evidence selections, and a name. Course/section and class code are optional labels; neither sends work anywhere. Just for Fun keeps the same decisions but permits skipped writing. Both modes require numeric Government and Youth reach predictions before the access reveal. Switching modes preserves work; earlier Fun exploration and later retrospective answers are disclosed. Facilitator → code 5907 opens brief guidance. This is a convenience view, not secure access or an assessment key.
Run the nominal 55-minute route
| Minutes | Actual sequence and task |
|---|---|
| 0–7 | Choose mode, enter name, Take your seat; read the authoritarian-state background and notice, then write the first intention. |
| 7–19 | Round 1: inspect people, choose two policies and four requests, predict one reply, select evidence, write why, then Seal round 1 plan. Read all replies. The first round receives the most time because its controls are new. |
| 19–26 | Round 2: inspect Government’s changed offer and earlier decisions; revise or retain the plan. Commit the second forecast before revealing replies. |
| 26–33 | Round 3: make final requests, commit the third forecast, and reveal final arrangements. |
| 33–39 | Open forums; select one revealed terminal decision and one organization’s revealed reply, make one fictional citizen choice (abstention allowed), and compare Ari’s terminal control with one organization’s own resource decision and their consequences. |
| 39–42 | Enter both predicted new reach totals (whole numbers 0–12) and explain the access-only prediction; Keep my prediction and reveal. |
| 42–46 | Revise or defend the access claim, revisit one earlier forecast, and consider whether either side’s eventual victory would settle fairness. |
| 46–52 | Transfer: identify a genuine unknown in the repair/sports-club town and explain two conditional predictions. |
| 52–55 | Review the report, complete missing work if needed, download/print, and submit through the course system. |
For 50 minutes, shorten each negotiation by one minute and opening/report by one minute each; protect comparison, revision, and transfer. For 60 minutes, add five minutes to compare two learners’ causal explanations after export. These are estimated teaching timings, not measured completion times. There is no countdown or speed score.
What the controls model
Inspecting and questions are free. The round checklist and four-request summary make the workflow explicit. Service requests are preselected initially, and earlier requests carry forward; a learner may deliberately retain them. Predicting one reply does not limit execution to that organization. Each round fixes exactly two policy promises, one service/sharing/pressure request per organization, and an optional request for shared terminal access. Read How this fictional person decides for transparent authored conditions. Organizations answer after sealing; demands supply no legal power.
A reach unit is an artificial resource measure, not a count of people, views, or votes. Each campaign retains one baseline reach unit. The terminal supplies two: Government-only 2/0 or shared 1/1. Four independent owners have two each. G gives both to Government; Y to Youth; S shares; W leaves both unused. Used plus unused totals 12. Speaking opportunity is 20 + 5 × reach seconds. The forum speeches are excerpts, not timed playback. The citizen choice is personal fictional reflection; no election tally or winner is generated.
Save, export, and collect
Edits autosave in the current browser when storage is available. Check Saved on this device; moving the game file or changing browsers does not carry that saved state. Use Save & files → Download backup for portable JSON and Restore backup to resume it. Restoration checks the model history and asks before replacing current work.
If an unreadable saved game is found, autosave pauses to protect its bytes. Use Save & files to download the unopened data before explicitly choosing a new run or restoring a backup. Ordinary typing cannot replace it. The final report offers Print / Save as PDF, text, HTML, and backup downloads; exports are also available during play. Students submit the requested report themselves. Nothing uploads automatically. Backups contain names and answers. Eight responses target about 300 words, with 15–25-word minima. Class completion checks presence and length, not reasoning; retrospective additions remain labeled. If an older incomplete Fun save lacks numeric access estimates, later estimates added for Class completion are explicitly retrospective and preserve the original entries.
First-time learner guidance
The current-request reference uses the exact button name and plain policy words; other requests and the complete history condition remain optional. Known withdrawal/restoration conditions appear before generic outcomes. Organization names accompany people in forecast and evidence controls. The changed-row summary supports comparison while preserving the full board.
The explanation task uses two clearly labeled source categories. One item of each type is required for Class completion; this is a structural evidence check, not a judgment of the prose. Older saves still load. If earlier work supplied only background references, later category additions remain labeled retrospective alongside the earlier sources and original writing.
The citizen choice explicitly steps out of Sasha’s role. Reconsideration shows the earlier explanation and asks the same three analytical questions in one response. A stated model rule may justify a confident forecast; use the explanation and transfer answers to assess political reasoning rather than reward correct guesses alone.
Read for learning, not preferred politics
Use the learner’s actual choices and evidence. Recruiting everyone, maximizing reach, sharing, refusing, or choosing a particular citizen option is not the correct answer.
| Evidence | Strong / partial / misconception examples |
|---|---|
| Causation | Strong: “Ari kept both terminal units for Government. Mika independently contributed two units and ten seconds to Youth. The notice did not decide the union’s contribution, and neither choice reveals members’ votes. (Use the learner’s actual revealed route.)” Partial: “Mika helped Youth,” without an action or effect. Misconception: “Ari’s notice transferred the union’s assets.” |
| Comparison | Strong: only terminal access changes; one campaign gains one unit/five seconds and the other loses them, while plans and owner choices stay fixed. Partial: correct totals without interpretation. Misconception: equal final reach proves fair treatment, or more time proves victory. |
| Transfer | Strong: investigate enforceable control over club bookings; if it exists cancellation may follow, otherwise refusal may remain possible. Partial: name a relevant unknown without two predictions. Misconception: private ownership always guarantees effective freedom. |
Keep the reading question open
Before Levitsky and Way, ask what made this order effective and why meaningful opposition persists in an explicitly authoritarian setting. Save the article’s named mechanisms for after reading. These organizations’ practical independence tonight is stipulated; it does not demonstrate weak bureaucracy, unreliable coercion, or a fragmented ruling party. Sincere incumbent support can coexist with unequal opportunity. In a real case, one facility rule alone would not classify a national regime.
Primary sources and narrow uses
- Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2020). The New Competitive Authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy, 31(1), 51–65. Meaningful competition can coexist with serious incumbent abuse; the game models only a limited distinction.
- Schwartz, D. L., & Bransford, J. D. (1998). A Time for Telling. Cognition and Instruction, 16(4), 475–522. Contrasting psychology cases followed by explanation supported later predictions; this informs comparison before reading.
- Gick, M. L., & Holyoak, K. J. (1983). Schema Induction and Analogical Transfer. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 1–38. Comparing two analogs supported schema induction and transfer; it does not validate this political game.