Let's start with two games from Nathan Meunier, a tin games designer whose aesthetic palette is so easily recognizable. First comes Dead Machine Gods (which is a nice example of linguistic ambiguity, as I cannot tell if they are Gods of a Dead Machine, of if they are Gods of a Machine, but they are dead, which doesn't quite make sense in both cases anyway without further context).
Dice allocation and card play, from a mere look of it. Will JW like it this time? If you prefer to ditch the dice and just keep the card play, maybe the sequel to Mindburners, Into the Void, will be a better choice.
Weird Sci-Fi is not your thing? You prefer had Sci-Fi, with actual starships and some sense of space grandeur? Maybe you'll want to have a look at Wormholes in this case, an upcoming game from AEG. It's driven by pick-up-and-delivery mechanisms, because apparently, the fate of humanity when it will set up for the wider cosmos out there is to get busy with pizza delivery at the interstellar scale. Still, it gets more classy than a Uber Eats bike.
And finally, for those who prefer a more poetic and evocative vision of space, you have Hoshi Collect, "a game in which you roll the dice on a tile card that resembles space, advance through the frame, and collect star shards." Whatever that means.
Let's say with ships for a while, but let's get down to more earthly matters. In Ship Adventure, you sail the seven seas for the best possible reason, which is hunting treasure, of course! Actually it's two games in one, so alternatively, you may also try to conquer the Caribbean. I mean, why not. You wouldn't be the first, but maybe it's lucrative. Or fulfilling if you fancy yourself as a terrible pirate.
Still eager for blood, violence, and cold-blood murder? Try to assassinate your opponent in Super Snipers, a game in which you want to shoot down your opponent using... polyomino-driven enclosure! That's gonna get wild and dirty!
OK I have sworn to Athena that I would offer at least one peaceful theme for the least barbaric share of our audience, so instead of killing each other, I offer you to build your dream city in the lovely Townies, a game of dice rolling and coloring books. Or hex-covered sheets, if that ever made a difference.
Now I can go on with the crazy themes. Let's consider echoes: The Cursed Ring, in which "an antique heirloom persecutes a young woman with bad luck". Isn't that terrifying! Thankfully it's not a big wooden cabinet, that would have been more threatening. To play the game, you must rely on an app through which you will listen to "mysterious noises" in order to solve the mystery of the Cursed Ring.
That's not crazy enough for you? Try then Vegetasaurus Rex, a possible ancestor of JW, the only person I have ever known that celebrates Asparagus Day. This is a children memory game so it probably won't interest anyone, but a game whose description was "Get three recipes and become Vegetasaurus Rex, the king of herbivores." was just too good an opportunity to pass by.
And since I'm done with these silly themes, I'll end up with a game as themeless as possible, SUM8, in which you lay tiles in order to make some "8" appearing. Sounds abstract.
The rules for Super Snipers are now available here.
Kickstarter on October 18.