What makes you human? Is it the way you look? The ideals you uphold? The love in your heart, or something more scientific? Is it the dictionary definition of human? Is it your very being, your genomes and chemical makeup? Or can human be whatever you fancy it to be; that is, what does it mean to be human?

Premise

You are a 19-year-old girl. In your "past life", you signed up for a volunteer program that would rid you of your criminal record if you stood post at Gate 37 for seven nights outside of the isolated town of Whitewood, allowing or denying entry to passersby, though you have no memory of this. Once your seven nights of service are complete, your memories of Whitewood will be wiped and you will be given back your memories of your past life, allowing you to continue living as if nothing happened.


Background

GATE 37 was a game created in 17 days to be released on Halloween (though was slightly delayed), featuring artwork from 16 different artists and was the very first game I (CRRN) not only coded and wrote, but produced and directed! It began as a personal experiment, though became a volunteer-driven experience once I found it implausible to complete the artwork on my own. If you want to support my other art and projects, please consider checking out my X/Twitter!

I don't think it could be the best it could be even if I worked on it another month, and unfortunately school is very demanding. If I could've made it better, I definitely would've, but I'm very happy with what we managed to accomplish in such a short timeframe.

Credits

GATE 37 was heavily inspired by "spot-the-anomaly"/horror visual novel-type games such as No, I'm Not A Human, Who's At The Door?, and Security Booth

To not spoil the characters in-game, here are all the volunteers who helped me bring this project to life without specific credits!

SPRITE ARTISTS:

BACKGROUND/CG ARTISTS:

PLAYTESTERS & PROOFREADERS:

Character/background/writing-specific credits can be found in the game.


Other

GATE 37 takes place within my (CRRN's) original character project/world, Paradise Lost. Some terminology, character origins, or the reason behind their appearance may be unexplained in-game, but are part of this larger world! 

  • All images and dialogue were hand-drawn/hand-written. No AI was used in this project.
  • GATE 37 was intended to be a semi-horror game for Halloween. It includes elements such as jumpscares, extremely loud noises, sudden changes in light/flashing-glitching effects, unsettling/distorted faces, blood, and death
  • If there are major issues/bugs in the game, please message me, but otherwise there are a handful of minor bugs that are known and may or may not be fixed. Known "bugs":
    • [MAJOR] If you get Ending 3, it will most likely continue onto one of the other endings unintentionally. This is probably because I forgot the return command...
    • Some of the inspection images may be in black and white...
    • Some text options may repeat twice.
    • Missing sound effects in certain parts of the game.
    • A plethora of minor spelling issues and grammar mistakes.
StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Release date Nov 01, 2025
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(11 total ratings)
AuthorCRRN
GenreVisual Novel
Made withRen'Py, Adobe After Effects, Paint Tool SAI
Tags2D, artgame, Atmospheric, Characters, First-Person, Horror, Indie, Sci-fi, Short, Singleplayer
Average sessionA few minutes
LanguagesEnglish
ContentNo generative AI was used

Download

Download
GATE-1.0-pc.zip 258 MB
Download
GATE-1.0-mac.zip 254 MB
Download
GATE-1.0-win.zip 246 MB

Install instructions

Upon downloading the zip, find it in the file explorer, right click on it, and click on "extract all".

Open the folder that was extracted.

Run GATE.exe

Comments

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

*sob sob* it's me again... Can I ask for your permission to use of the backgrounds? *Sob sob* I'm feeding myself with contents about this 🥹🥹🥹 This feels like I'm wasting your time 😫

(+1)

Its ok !!! I'm glad to receive any comments LOL if its for something personal (ex. fanart, personal art) I wouldn't mind, but please do not use them in commercial projects! I would even prefer them to not be reused in personal projects, but that cannot be legally dictated. If you do use it for something small like an art piece, please credit back to this game, unless it's obvious fanart :))

What if it's a very small a animation? 🤔 The small animation is about this game too :Q

(+1)

waaa that should be fine then!!! just make it clear that it's fanart. in that case, it would be optional to credit the background or not :)

Oh okay!! Thank you!! >U<

Thought I should show it to you so you know where I used it ^^ btw the caption is "In the name of the Father. The Son. The Holy Spirit. Amen. God. Save me. From this. Torture." cause my dum ahh forgot to put it in the video :T This animation is kinda trash but to be honest it's kinda my first time doing this C: 

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSu5SVU6e/ lemme know if the link doesn't work :^

HUHHHH This is so good for a first time hello???? And so cool omg… first time anyone has made fanart like this… 🥹🥹 thank you so much !!!!!! I love the effects and changing face omg u got it perfect !!!

Aww thank you, you're so niceee 🥹

This game is NOT leaving my mind at all :C also can you tell Mr Fairy to be bald instead? D: (I have a love and hate with his hair) also I draw this for fun so it's kinda ugly... He's also not very detailed so...

(+1)

HELP MEEE THIS IS SO CUTE. TY FOR DRAWING HIM !!!

I have questions, wow I actually have questions wowza... I was so excited when I saw two pics of their biology 🥺 (is it still called a biology if they're not biological?) I might sound dumb or stupid with some of these questions, especially because I read what you provided about Angelicals, ahem, when you said "Cherry Flavored Filled Candy" is that a joke? 🤔 Cause if it's not I'd happily eat it 😋 Since they have a CPU those that mean that if that is destroyed or damage, can they still be repair back to what they originally are like? (I know nothing about computer) What's more important between their Core and CPU? is the one on the picture for Dominions is Fairy? Dumb question, what branch does this game fall under? This will sound super dumb but how does their hive mind works exactly? Like do they just share information to each other? Am I missing something cause I don't know what the cosmic silly strings are :^ I feel like I just missed a page... These next questions are more on a silly imagination ones, like "what if" type of situation, cause this game has been in my mind for so long please get it out 🥺 How would Fairy react to the MC cosplaying as him? 🤔 Would the game go in a different direction if the MC was a male instead? What is Fairy's (or others) reaction (or opinion if he can) about the complexity of human relationship and preference? (Mostly sexuality, physical attraction, one sided love, and other complex relationships) Btw why is Fairy called Fairy anyway? I have more questions actually, I just forgot most of them...COCONUT >:D 

(+1)

maybe(?) some game spoilers below!

HELPP NO UR GOOD !!! 1. yea it was just a joke lololol 2. they should always be able to repair themselves, but they might not have their individual memories (maybe they can upload them and download them later?) 3. their core is like a ""living"" being that has its own preferences, the hardware is just what makes it work and capable of interacting with the world around it, so probably the core lol 4. yes thats him !!! 5. this game takes place a long time before most of my main story so it's not well developed lol, Fairy probably works for SOAAR and abuses his power to do illogical experiments that entertain him ... 6. just like normal computers pretty much lol all angelicals can communicate with one another over network and can rarely confine their own "thoughts". and the cosmic silly strings are just a removed thing that started as a joke anyway HUDHSDS

yess and for your other questions !!!! 1. probably not, but the dating sim version most likely would... 2. they probably dont like same-sex relationships because they see it as inefficient; they're always trying to maximize so any living being that isnt actively contributing to society (ie. having children and keeping the cycle going at maximum pace) is just dead weight to them. other than that they probably dont care lol, or find it stupid that living things have so many intricacies. 3. the name Fairy doesnt have much important LOL it's the name of an alien planet from a series i like (Yukikaze) .... TY FOR ALL THE QUESTIONS WAA

(+1)

Wowza....I just now found out about this game? Wow I'm missing out a lot of stuff... Anyways, am I the only one who finds Fairy fascinating? Like not in a romantic way, I mean sure he's handsome in his own way, quite attractive if I do say so mayself, but! That's not my point, I think I found him fascinating in a "I want to dissect and study him" kind of way, mostly because of the part where we inspected him and we saw what's inside his mouth and I was like "wow....is that thing in the middle what gives him voice? What gives what his voice?" And then my thoughts kinda just spiral down to many questions like "what makes him think? How does he think? How does he have a personality? How does he decides what and what not? How is he his own individual? What makes him an individual? Is what he is his choice or is that how he is made? If so then is he what he truly what he chooses to be?" I could go on more from his physical body to psychological, I think I was stuck in that scene for almost an hour too, I was THAT fascinated, I want to learn what makes him him, what ticks him to do what and what not, AAAAAA so curious!!! T-T I could talk more about Fairy and my very strange fascination of him but it's so late here rn and I need sleep for tomorrow so, good game! Makes me wanna crave more similar games like this (⁠。⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧

(+2)

WAAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ENJOYING IT !!! (and fairy especially lol)... if you are curious for a real explaination, he is part of my fictional angel species (angelicals). you can find pretty much any answer about his biology there, but if u want to keep speculating i love the questions you asked heehee...THANK YOU FOR PLAYING !!!

Ooooooo! I'll be sure to read it!!! >O< I love questioning a lot of things (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) if you're planning to make more games about your ocs I'd be so happy >u< but I'll read these ones over here for now ^W^ (also kinda funny cause Angelicals sounds like my name 😆)

(+1)

Amazeballs

I love fairy so much I need to put him in a jar and shake him around like a bug

THANK YOU !!!! i saw ur thread on twitter but it was like two weeks later so i felt weird liking or replying or anything lol... i'm glad you liked it... (no don't do that you will give him brain damage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

(+1)

Visuals are very slick! Very cool for being made in 17 days. I do wish that more choices mattered, and it was clear that lots of dialogue just assumed you picked one option, but I can respect not wanting to sweat over the details for a game made in a couple weeks. I had fun!

I don't know why I never replied omg, I swear I did??? Yeah haha, there wasn't much room for lots of endings sob... but thank you so much for enjoying it!!!

EXCELLENT GAME CRRN!!!!!!!!!!

IM SO LATE. THANK YOU FUDGE !!!!!!!!!!!!

(+1)

Typos: 

Fairy at the start of the game says achiving

On the choices talking to demon there is a "better then"

Saying Wild Men to Angel, it answers with Carpe Dium, which I'm very inclined to believe was meant to be Carpe Diem, but disregard it if intentional.

Question:

Choosing to shoot joy has no gunshot and the text goes saying it steps away, but the dialogue it says implies (to me) that it is accepting that you'll kill it and just openly taking the shot. Did I interpret the tone wrong?

Review:

I think Dennis and Ending 5 Variation 1 were pretty interesting events, and the player character's past and future is intriguing, so I appreciate the two main characters to say the least.

Me-ism and Deer given the chance to be reocurring could also grow on me, I think. If the game expanded, I think a good approach would be killing, letting in and shooing away, killing ending a story there, while letting in and shooing open different branches (letting in being a domino effect and shooing letting the character revisit later and allow you to continue their plotline).

Spare Llulla route when, Pharaoh?

Not letting suspicious elements in not resulting in a different conclusion is a bit upsetting, many choices resulting in the same dialogues ditto, so as a VN I can't praise it too much, since I'd rather it just be static except for the bad end choices. Demon in particular, when you say "sounds better than here" still reacts as if you're refusing him, and then angel praises your steadfastness, so it feels very incongruent. Fairy talking about his crown seems like setup for how shooting him in the head ought to lead somewhere, but it wasn't the case either. 

SFX-wise, I only wish characters had footsteps (it's unintentionally quite comedic when fairy just zooms away on the first night) and thus some characters that arent really walking could stand out as even more uncanny.

Art: lovely. the eyes and skin are such normal inspections while the mouth is so borderline fetishistic really transmits well how invasive it is to inspect someone's mouth as opposed to the rest. As gameplay it didn't feel very flexible, but artistically and narratively, it was used very well.


(I read the page better as I wrote this, and now I presume it isn't a project you'll continue working on going forward, so my criticisms on expanding the game may be worthless presently, but a worth a penny in a future project, deo volente.)

Woww thank you so much for your review and criticisms! I'll definitely keep them in mind for the future. Yeah haha, there were quite a few spelling mistakes and bugs I don't think I got around to fixing, and the inconsistencies in story/dialogue are because the dialogue was written at the same time as the code (thus the story was made up as I went LOL).

I definitely have more experience now and your criticism offered some new insight. Thank you so much again!