WHERE THIS GAME CAME FROM
Built on
Society Fail.
Society Fail is an open-source incremental survival game by Sabotage Media LLC, released under the MIT License. Gatefall started as a fork of it in August 2026 and has been growing away from it since. This page is the honest account of which parts are whose — and if you came looking for a Society Fail alternative, whether this is the one.
01 / THE ORIGINALMIT LICENSED
What Society Fail is
A browser survival game in which you keep a small party of survivors fed, watered and rested while a clock runs, with its source published on GitHub.
The MIT License permits anyone to use, modify and redistribute the code, including commercially, provided the copyright notice and the licence text travel with it. That is what makes a fork like this one legitimate rather than borrowed. If you want the original, it is at github.com/Shpigford/society-fail, and it is worth playing on its own terms.
02 / THE DIVISIONKEPT AND ADDED
Which parts are whose
The core loop is Society Fail's, and Gatefall has not tried to hide it: three survivors, an hourly clock, three gathering orders, and hunger, thirst and energy that only stop mattering when somebody dies.
Carried over
- The upgrade tree, farming, hunting, the well and the lumber mill
- The medical tent, the watchtower and the automation upgrades
- Specialization roles and the achievement list
- Random events and the save system
Added since
- Seasons and weather — four 20-day seasons and a daily roll
- Memory fragments, expeditions and missions
- Transmissions and a live world signal
- Offline catch-up, storage limits, rationing and hazards
If you have played Society Fail, the first ten minutes of Gatefall will feel familiar, and that is not an accident.
03 / THE DIVERGENCETWENTY-TWO MODULES
What Gatefall added
Everything that happens after the first few days is new: seasons, weather, expeditions, a prestige layer, a story told in recovered transmissions, and other players visible in the same world.
- A year with a shape. Four 20-day seasons that multiply what your orders return, weather rolled fresh each day, and a night that costs you 10% on gathering.
- Memory fragments. A prestige currency banked at the end of every run, spent on permanent upgrades, so a camp that dies still pays into the next one.
- Broadcasting. From day ten you can end a run deliberately, with everyone alive, instead of playing until the wipe.
- Expeditions and missions. Sending people away from the camp, with real risk, for things the camp cannot grow.
- Transmissions. A story recovered in fragments while gathering, rather than told up front.
- Other people. A live world signal showing how many other camps are running right now.
- An offline cap and catch-up. The clock stops when the tab is hidden and resumes honestly, so a camp left overnight is not a camp found dead.
- Storage limits, emergency rationing and hazards — pressure valves the original did not need, because the original's runs were shorter.
The direction of all of it is the same: Society Fail is excellent for an evening, and Gatefall is trying to be worth a week.
04 / THE RECOMMENDATIONIF YOU CAME FROM SOCIETY FAIL
Looking for a Society Fail alternative?
If you want a browser game similar to Society Fail — or simply something to play after it — Gatefall is the closest one there is, because it is built on the same code.
It keeps the minimalist resource-management survival that made the original work: three survivors, an hourly clock, and food, water and wood that never quite stretch far enough. What it adds is a reason to keep going past the first evening. Four seasons change what every order returns. Expeditions send people out past the fence for things the camp cannot grow. Runs end permanently, but memory fragments carry permanent upgrades into the next camp. And a story arrives in pieces, recovered while you gather.
Like the original, it is free, runs in any browser, needs no download and no account, and saves itself locally on the device you played it on.
05 / THE CREDITNOTHING HIDDEN
How the attribution works
The MIT licence text ships with the game, the copyright notice sits in the source of every page, and the in-game Acknowledgements panel credits Society Fail by name with a link to it.
Gatefall's own modifications are copyright Stargate ASI, 2026. Nothing about the fork is meant to be discovered; it is written on the page you are reading and in the game's own credits.
06 / QUESTIONSASKED OFTEN
Questions people actually ask
- Is there a good Society Fail alternative?
- Gatefall is the most direct one: a browser survival game built on Society Fail's own code, with the same opening loop and a much longer game after it. It is free, needs no account, and runs anywhere the original does.
- Is Gatefall the same game as Society Fail?
- No. It shares the opening loop and a good deal of the early code, and then diverges: the fiction is different, the run is much longer, and the entire mid and late game — seasons, expeditions, prestige, the story — does not exist upstream.
- Is Gatefall open source too?
- The Society Fail code it is built on remains under the MIT License, and that licence and notice ship with the game. Gatefall's own additions are not published as a repository.
- Is Gatefall free?
- Yes, and there is nothing to buy. The camp will occasionally offer a sponsored transmission that pauses the clock and pays a small supply cache; taking it is always optional and turning it down costs nothing.
- Do I need an account?
- No. There is no sign-up and no email. The camp saves itself in your browser, so it will be waiting on the same device unless you clear your browsing data.
Start a camp
of your own.
Play Gatefall
Free to play. No account. Or read the field guide first.