Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code News

Just a very quick and small fix.

It’s obvious that stories need a setup, but what does that mean, really?

The setup is the status quo of the main protagonist. It’s what he does on the regular. It also introduces supporting/side characters and the protagonist’s tangible goal (that which he thinks will make him happy, also known as the protagonist “want” or “external goal”). But that’s not all the setup is designed to do. It’s also demonstrating the problems that need to be fixed with your protagonist (his flaws) and the world itself (the setting’s flaws). Ideally, these things will be “fixed” or remain “broken” by the end of the story (depending on whether you’re telling a tragedy or a comedy).

So how do you show the setup? It can be intimidating to figure out where to start, but the way to do it is to show your protagonist in three different stages of their life: what does your protagonist do for work? What does your protagonist do at home? What does your protagonist do during play? You don’t have to show all three and certainly you can blend them, that’s totally up to you. This is just a framework to help setup the Setup, so to speak.

How did I do this for Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code? Let’s take a look (beware, spoilers ahead for the beginning of the game!)



Under Mount Sinai – The game starts here and it’s a kind of tutorial dungeon. It introduces the main mechanics of combat and lets you play around with the controls and get used to the customization of the game. Of the three, this part of the game is actually Joshwa’s “play”. You think it’d be work, since this is a mission for judges and prophets, but it’s actually not, mainly because Joshwa isn’t a judge and he shouldn’t even be there, so he’s “playing” as a judge. It’s what he wants to become, a judge.



Jericho – The next area and story sequences are at Jericho. This is the work part of the Setup beat, mainly because Jericho is the HQ of judges, soldiers, and prophets. It’s their “office”. And lastly we have…



Nurya’s Villa – This one’s easy: it’s literally Joshwa’s house, the place where he grew up. This one’s the home part of the Setup beat.

As you can see, for Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code I showcased all three of the components that can make up the Setup: home, work, and play.

But what about what needs fixing? Well, let’s see: you’ve got the Jehudans and Attikans hating each other; you’ve got Cainites dying out; you’ve got the existence of still more Cainites when it was believed they were eradicated; Joshwa is wounded severely; Ruthia is imprisoned; the Idinites aren’t in the Kingdom of Heaven even though they really think they should be; and to make matters worse, Jericho is falling apart and is in need of constant repairs.

That’s a lot of stuff that needs fixing!

The thing about Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code is that the Setup is layered, and that mainly has to do with the complex worldbuilding. In Screenplays and movies, the Setup is usually within the first 10 minutes (sometimes first 5 minutes!). For novels, the Setup is usually the first 10 percent of the book (which can range depending on how long the book is). For video games? Well, that also depends on the game and the story. It's totally fine to have a shorter Setup and totally fine to layer in the other beats (like the Opening Image and Theme Stated) with the Setup.

The last thing I want to leave you with is that the Setup should include a feeling of impending danger or death if things stay the way they are. In other words, if things don’t change for this world and your protagonist, it could spell doom. It doesn’t have to be a literal death, but it can be. I do this by showing that Joshwa’s external goal of becoming a judge (his want, the thing that will make him happy) is seemingly dashed after he’s wounded. Joshwa has to figure out something, he has to change, if he has any hope in obtaining the thing he thinks will make him happy.

And that’s the Setup beat. The next beat I’ll be talking about is the Catalyst beat.

To celebrate the Steam Summer Sale, I've released this FREE e-book that takes place in the Elohim Eternal universe! It's a prequel novella. Many of the characters you'll read about in the novella are featured in Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code.

It's completely free and you can download it for your e-reader or download the PDF.



Claim your copy now!

It seemed people liked the post on Theme, so I thought I’d break down other story beats in Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code. Today I’m talking about the opening image.

It’s obvious, right? Every story has what screenplay writers call an “opening image”. Novelists have this, too, but often call it “the hook,” and it's usually found in the first sentence, paragraph, or chapter. Video games have this, too, but it’s more like how screenplay writers see it than how novelists see it.

So, what is an “opening image”? Is it meant to grip your attention? It can. Is it meant to start in media res (in the middle of)? It can. Is it meant to be big explosions? A fight scene? Fireworks? It can.

An opening image is basically the starting point of the hero. It’s the “before” snapshot of our hero. Before he goes on his journey, and before he is transformed by the journey. It also sets up tone, mood, scope, and setting.

I applied this same storytelling technique to Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code. The opening image is the first five minutes of the game, just before the scene where we meet Lamech.

Here’s some screens of it:







What does this opening image tell us? Let’s break it down.

What is the starting point of the hero and what’s his “before” snapshot? Right at the start Joshwa goes down on bended knee and prays to his gods, the Kosmokraters. So it’s obvious from the start that this is a very religious and pious man. We also learn that he wants to be a judge, and that his father was one and is no longer with us (that sets up a bit of a sympathy for the hero…after all, it sucks losing your dad!).

What about the tone, mood, scope, and setting? We’re under a mountain (the game opens up under Mount Sinai), Joshwa is praying, and we know the mountain we are under is called Mount Sinai. It’s underground. The mood is dark and eerie, weird even. And there’s definitely a religious tone and setting here. And religion tends to have quite the epic scope, so that’s communicated as well. It’s also a rather slower opening. There’s no big explosions. It’s not a Michael Bay film. I wanted the player to ease into the game, get comfortable, and realize they are entering a whole other world with its own religion, lore, history, and important historical figures (akin to games like the Elder Scrolls). It's a complex world.

Here's the thing about the opening image: the end of a story should always have a final image and that final image should be the opposite of the opening image. Why is it the opposite? Because your hero has changed and so has his world view. Novelists do this, too, but often call it a mirror. It’s so much like a mirror that novelists (the good ones, at least) will use similar words, paragraph lengths, sentence structure, etc. for the ending as they did for the opening. It creates a sense of closure, as though the cycle of this story is complete.

And that’s the opening image. The opening image is the easiest thing to spot in any story since you can always count on it being the very first thing you see, read, or play. So try and see if you can list all the characteristics of the stories you like.

Thanks so much for playing Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code, the first game in the Elohim Eternal series. The reviews I've gotten have been wonderful, and I'm glad that the story and lore is resonating with players. The game is, first and foremost, about story told in an interactive, turn-based RPG. And like life itself and the human condition - it's a complex story. It's got many, many layers.

Because story plays such a huge role in Elohim Eternal, I wanted to talk about theme. Before I plan out a story I always have to know what the theme is – what am I trying to tell the player? What do I want the player to walk away with from the story? Theme is often seen as that kind of boring part of a story, something your grade 12 English teacher wants an essay about on your reading of Macbeth. But, to me, theme is extremely important, and without it, you don't have a story.

But first, what is theme? Theme is basically the life lesson that your main character has to learn (or, in the case of a tragedy, fails to learn). Theme isn't something as simple as "love" or "faith" or "honor". Rather, it's about what this story is trying to say about these things, and it usually plays out like an argument in the story. All of the best movies, books, and games have a theme. We as players, viewers, and readers, don't see theme in this way; rather we see theme for the outcome it produces: character transformation. The main character should have an arc in their story, and it’s the theme that is the vehicle for that transformation.

Warning: Spoilers ahead!!

So how do we know what the theme is? There's always a theme stated scene, and it's usually a side character (or a minor character) that will state the theme. For Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code, the theme is simply: "Who's the bad guy?" Joshwa will learn who the real "bad guy" is in his story, and learning that will make him question his religious upbringing.

Who states the theme? His uncle, Lamech, in a small scene when they are under Mount Sinai. Lamech questions who the Kosmokraters are really for and who they are against. The Jehudans? The Attikans? The Cainites? No, they're against evil.

But are they really?



Throughout his journey, Joshwa will encounter people and events that will pull and push him from one side to the other (the Cainites are bad; the Cainites are good; the Kosmokraters are lying; the Kosmokraters are the ultimate truth). He'll come to question everyone, including his uncle and his gods. Ultimately, he sees the evil in his world and decides he must fight against, and he knows deep down that what he is doing is right, even though it goes against everything he believed in and everything he was taught. This is his lesson learned, his transformation. His whole worldview changes at the end of Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code.

Though I say Lamech is the one who stated the theme, in truth, the theme is stated right at the beginning of the game with the quotation from the Hebrew Bible in the Book of Joshua, which states: "When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, 'Are you for us, or for our adversaries?' And he said, 'No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.'"

This is the part of the biblical story where Joshua leads the Israelites into Canaan to take the land for Israel, the people of Yahweh. It's an uncomfortable passage because there seems to be evidence of mass genocide. There is a lot of biblical scholarship on why this is not the case (see Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm and John T Walton's The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest), but to summarize it, Joshua and the other Israelites were sent by Yahweh to defeat supernatural evil and remove the gods from the land (albeit, this requires a supernatural worldview which many people today do not have, including, surprisingly, Christians, Jews, and Muslims). What does "evil" mean in this context? It means the giants, the Nephilim, the anakim, the rephaim, etc. In the quotation, Joshua asks whether this figure, the commander of the army of the LORD (evidence suggests that this commander was Jesus—see Daniel Segal's Two Powers in Heaven and Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm and Angels), if he is for the Israelites or for the Israelites' adversaries, where this commander then turns around and gives a really odd reply. He essentially says, "I'm not here for either of you. I'm here because I am the commander of the LORD, I'm here to remove evil and bring people back into the family of the LORD." Similarly, Joshwa in Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code experiences something similar. He's not going to stop evil for the Kosmokraters, for the Attikans, the Jehudans, or the Cainites. He's here to stop evil for the benefit of all.

And there you have it—the theme of Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code (and with some biblical commentary and further reading should you choose to go down that route). I hope the above has deepened your understanding of the game's story, its main character, and its theme.

Now that you know what theme is and that every story has a theme stated scene, try to spot the theme stated scene in your favorite movies, shows, books, and story-heavy video games. It's usually stated early, never stated by the main character (usually a minor or side character), and is often, but not always, a kind of musing.