Done! Massively late but here it is nonetheless; the concluding page of Replay Value!
It’s been a busy Christmas to say the least, there was a house move in there somewhere amongst all the food and booze and besides struggling to sit down and finish this thing the page itself had a few troublesome spots. Wanting to raise the quality of the finale typically resulted in a bloated schedule – like my stomach post Xmas – such are the perils of being one’s own master…
I’ve also got something of a postscript I want to write on my inspiration for this one, however I imagine it’ll be a sizable essay in itself and right now I’ve got to stress out over a few other things for the next 24 hours or so. I’ll see that it arrives ASAP along with the massively overdue continuation of my old flame Branch.
Apologies to everyone I’ve spectacularly failed to follow and communicate with this yuletide – I haven’t forgotten you and I’ll hop back on the digi-wagon very soon, honest!
Growing Branch 
I really like how you drew the blood! And nice to see the conclusion :)
I must say I did think that they were into a videogame all along, but I was thinking more as in a new advance virtual reality type of game than an actual nowadays game, so my deduction wasn’t exact. I think it’s interesting how the in game characters know about the character’s personal life, not just his game avatar.
I’d say I enjoyed drawing the bloodsplatter! But that probably makes me sound like a uh… psycho… ¬_¬
Good call on the concept anyhow, I guess there were too many hints too early and I gave the game away a bit. ironically I was thinking of it as a future game given how ridiculously advanced their AI’s are (e.g.emotions and time off) but then the formula is undeniably current so it’s something of a contradiction really :S
Having them know about the user’s personal life might have been a bit of a stretch to form the final joke (what I felt was almost a parent/child relationship going on between enemy/player) however, giving thought to rising connectivity of our media perhaps the idea of game AI’s plundering a Facebook or Twitter for research on their foe isn’t such a farfetched future scenario afterall?
I don’t think that last point would be farfetched at all, considering how more and more games requires internet to play, and how the internet seems more and more obsessed with every details of our lives to, of course, “serve us better”
Oddly enough I just heard that the next Playstation’s controller may have biometric sensors on the grips:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-18-sony-to-drop-dualshock-for-the-next-playstation-report
Apparently to capture ‘data from the player’s body, such as temperature and heart rate’, not remotely creepy at all right?…