Finished: May 21, 2025
Posted: June 14, 2026
Author's Commentary
It's a new year, and it's a new me, and - just maybe - it's a new you as well. Won't you join me in this wonderful, ever-changing universe we reside in?
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I've learned new rendering techniques for character symbols, and I've retroactively applied it to all previous pages. This will make them easier to read and produce less eye strain, as well as broaden the range of people who might be interested in reading my spritecomic.
The bad news is that this took me nearly a year to develop. Actually, that's not true, but I wanted to have a reason to give for the long delay. As you can see with the dates given above, this page was finished a long time ago, but only now has it been made available to the public. If you consider it, since the delay is already evident, it's not actually news, meaning that I have only given you good news today. Hooray!
Now, as for the page itself. Eagle memoried readers, or people reading through the entire archive in one sitting, will know exactly when this page takes place chronologically. For the rest, I will explain that the events depicted here occur immediately before Page #6, which then is continued by Page #9. The narrative splits into following Mike in #10 and #12, and following Jeanette in later pages that I haven't made yet. I might remember to update this text with links to said pages when they exist. Perhaps I won't!
Next time, we will finally reunite with the first two characters of my spritecomic. At this point, nearly half of the pages have been about anybody except them, which might be starting to lose peoples attention spans. In which case, I say, let's see you make a long-running spritecomic that manages to be more coherent! But you cannot, for if you can't follow my story, you surely won't have the patience to make your own...
Transcript
#13: Previously...
arkbitegames.neocities.org
Panel 1: Jeanette and Mike are both standing in a wide room on the space station. There is a computer with a keyboard in the background, with the screen dark and the power off.
Jeanette: "Hey Mike, could ya get me a coffee? I'm gonna be busy watching the space terminal."
Mike: "But the break room is past the anti-intruder laser forcefield room!"
Panel 2: Jeanette strikes a more serious pose, and Mike is sauntering off in an exaggerated manner through the open door.
Jeanette: "Aw, come on! It's only dangerous if you don't know the password, which is so simple, who could forget it?"
Mike: "Alriiiiight, I'm going, but you owe me a favour for this!"
Panel 3: Jeanette has now turned to face the computer, and turns it on. The screen has a white display, with some command line text visible. The visible commands entered are "cd games" and "run gmep3". Meanwhile, a security light is flashing above the door, while two metal bars in the center of the door frame begin to lower.
Jeanette: "Hehe, while Mike's busy, I'll have time to try out this new "video game" the trader had!"
Mike (thinking to himself): "I don't remember the code, and asking is embarrassing... So I'll just guess it! Hm... Oops!"
Panel 4: The computer displays a menu, with the title "Ghost Mumps Episode 3" visible. There are several buttons visible on the screen, and the play button is currently highlighted. A second security light has activated on the door, and the metal bars are making more progress downards.
Jeanette: "No need to read the instructions, I want to get right into this and play!"
Mike: "Uhhh, Jeanette? I might have activated the security field- On purpose! By the way, what is the password?"
Panel 5: Jeanette has spun away from the computer screen to respond to Mike, missing the message being displayed: "Fatal Error Data Not Found: 100% Corruption". The number of blaring security lights above the door has doubled, to four, and the bars are now most of the way to the ground.
Jeanette: "Seriously? It's "1234", has been all week. Don't tell me you missed the last meeting!"
Mike: "Oh I was there, I must have, uh, stepped out! Thanks!! I totally got it from here, don't worry about the gate!"
Panel 6: Jeanette has turned back to the computer, only to find that it's displaying a garbled mess of static and visual noise. There are now so many security lights active on the door that they can't fit under Jeanette's speech bubble. The bars are touching the floor, completing the barricade and making the doorway impassable.
Jeanette: "What the heck? Did we get hacked by space pirates again? Ugh, now I can't play video games OR do my job!"
Mike: "OK, the panel input has been overridden due to the security alert... Good thing I'm a hacker!"