 |
| Illustration by Edward Borein |
In any creative endeavor, there are people who inspire us—who push us to do more or lead us down paths we hadn’t even considered. That’s certainly been true in the development of my game, Hurled into Eternity.
The funny thing is, some of those influences I recognized while building the game. Others I only saw in hindsight—ghosts riding alongside me the whole way, whether I knew it or not.
Movies - Upfront, it's easiest to say the most obvious inspirations are movies and TV. Pale Rider, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and especially Tombstone and Unforgiven absolutely deserve a spot on the short list of influences for Hurled into Eternity. They’re baked into the bones of the game, whether I meant them to be or not. There’s something about their tone: dusty, desperate, mythic—that lines up perfectly with the world I’ve been building for over two decades.
Music- Music. Music is essential. While working on the latest iterations of Hurled into Eternity, I listened to a ton of Western-inspired soundtracks. One of my go-to favorites is The Lone Ranger soundtrack, along with this absolute gem from Ennio Morricone: Guns for San Sebastian.
After a while, though, I needed something fresh—and I stumbled across this original composition by Steven Lynn. It sounds like it could be in Red Dead Redemption 2 its that good!
Terrain and Buildings - Fall and winter are usually when I hunker down at the hobby table. That’s when the brushes come out, the minis get primed, and the terrain pieces start to take shape. Right now, I’ve got the beginnings of a frontier town called Timber Ridge coming together. It’s a fictional outpost set somewhere in a mythic version of Wyoming—a place with its own legends, rival factions, and more than a few bodies buried beneath its streets.
Alongside that, I’ve also got some old model trains that once belonged to my dad, dating all the way back to the 1940s. I need to dig them out. There’s something deeply satisfying about using a piece of family history to help build a fictional world. Somehow, it all connects.
Working with something physical—terrain, paint, tools—also helps get the creative gears turning in a way that’s hard to replicate on a screen.
Why the Southwest Always Wins - If you’ve ever wondered why so many Western RPGs, films, and stories are set somewhere in the American Southwest, I think it comes down to one thing: the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
That single shootout in Tombstone has become the gravitational center of the genre. There were other towns, other legends, and other infamous clashes—but none carry the same mythic weight.
And yes, the title of my game—Hurled into Eternity—isn’t just poetic. It’s pulled directly from the next day’s edition of the Tombstone Epitaph. That headline stuck with me. It said everything the game tries to say: when you draw your last card, you're not walking away.
Cards, Dice, and the Roads Not Taken - Cards have always played second fiddle to dice in most game designs. Dice dominate as the go-to resolution mechanic, and very few systems—maybe eight to ten at most—use playing cards as a core part of their engine, either fully or partially.
Not long ago, I looked up Gunslingers and Gamblers and felt a brief gut punch when I saw it mentioned cards. Then I dug a little deeper and saw it actually uses poker dice. Relief.
To the best of my knowledge, Hurled into Eternity is the first Western RPG that uses playing cards exclusively to run the whole system. And there’s a reason you don’t see that more often: it’s tough to pull off.
Cards offer a lot—tension, unpredictability, narrative weight—but getting them to feel fast and natural at the table without bogging things down? That took years of trial, error, and rebuilding from the ground up.
What I’ve got now feels sharp. It’s dangerous, intuitive, and full of risk and momentum. The way a proper Western should feel.
RPGS- I’ve mostly steered clear of other Western RPGs—and that was intentional. I own the Savage Worlds rules and I’m familiar with how Deadlands uses cards for initiative, but I made a conscious effort to avoid diving too deep into that material. I wanted Hurled into Eternity to remain honest and original, not a remix of someone else’s work.
In fact, it wasn’t until I had the game mostly locked in—around version 7.5 Alpha—that I really started looking into what other Western RPGs were out there. I came across some excellent games, no question. But I’m glad I waited. For better or worse, I wanted Hurled into Eternity to succeed or fail on its own terms.
That said, I didn’t avoid everything. There were a few titles I did check out, mainly for reference—to make sure I wasn’t unknowingly treading the same ground. Those were:
- Western City (By Jorg Dunne)
- Boot Hill (1st and 3rd Edition)
- Go for Yer Gun (By Simon Washbourne)
- Weird West (by Stuart Robertson)
Each one offers something different, but I always came away feeling like I was still building something distinct.
Other RPG Influences- While it might not look like it in the form it is in now, the following games had a part in influencing me over the years with Hurled into Eternity:
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st Edition)
- FASERIP Marvel Superheroes
- Twilight 2000 (especially early on its development)
- Gangbusters (An absolutely incredible game!)
There you have it, just where Hurled into Eternity got its nods from.
