You and your alien opponents are in a race to pick up your crew that are scattered around the desert like candy out of a pinata. Crash & Grab is part programming and part strategy as you fly your saucer around the map and try to collect crew members. Watch out, because other saucers will slam you off the map and grab crew members that aren’t part of your alien race.
Who’s Controlling this Thing?
Crash & Grab is being published by Pull the Pin Games and plays two to six players. Each player is given a little plastic flying saucer, a saucer player board, and three movement cards. The main map will be slightly different sizes at each player count and is made up of cards. It’s essentially a desert with special icons scattered throughout.
Each of the four sides of the board will be marked with a directional marker. Players will play a card each round to move their saucer in the orientation they choose. Movement cards are limited but players will rely on accelerator icons and booster discs to move their saucer with precision. Each time your saucer flies over a crew member on the map, you’ll pick them up, even if they aren’t your alien player color.
The absolute chaos of Crash & Grab happens when saucers collide on the map. Saucers can slam into one another, shoving the stationary saucer flying off the map or into a space they didn’t want to be in. The best way to explain it would be Area 51 with bumper cars.
That’s Mine!
There are strategic reasons to slam into your opponents saucers. Maybe you forgot how to brake and need to come to a quick stop. Slamming into another saucer also allows you to grab an alien they have collected. Players can guard against this by collecting aliens of their specific race (player color). These aliens cannot be taken and are locked in on the saucer.
Players also earn energy cubes for crashing which can be turned in for saucer upgrades at the end of your turn. These upgrades can be very powerful and your saucer can have unlimited upgrades.
While players will ideally try to pick up their aliens, you can win the game with any aliens as long as you have them in the four different stations on your saucer board. The game can get crazy as players race to pick up their fourth alien in order to fill their last open station.
Final Thoughts
I really like the programming aspect of this game and some of the randomization that takes place. A 12-sided die is used to seed new aliens on the board at numbered crash sites around the map. In each round of the game a die will determine if turns are taken clockwise or counter clockwise around the table.
Crash & Grab has just the right level of chaos to make things fun and keep players engaged in the game. Hitting accelerator icons, using your boost tokens, and upgrading your saucer all add to the strategy in the game. It’s fun to target your friend or family member from across the map as they pick up one of your aliens before you can get to them. You need to be a little mean to fill your saucer in Crash & Grab. If this sounds like a game that would connect with your family and friends, you can visit the Kickstarter campaign when it launches in September 2025.
Crash & Grab is launching on Kickstarter on September 9, 2025. Check out their campaign today.
A prototype of the game was provided for this coverage. Components and rules covered in this preview are not finalized. Read more about our preview policies at One Board Family.
