In each of the game's six races, you must guide your marble along a series of platforms and ramps, taking care not to let the marble fall or get eaten. You have an infinite number of marbles, but only a small amount of time to complete each race. Reaching the goal line adds a few more seconds to the clock, and then the next challenge begins.
Starting with the second race, enemies will get in your way in an effort to make you lose time while dispatching a marble or two. Steelies are black marbles that will try to knock other marbles off the platform. Marble munchers slink about, ready to swallow whole any marble that wanders too close. Oozies are living, moving puddles of acid, experts at dissolving marbles on contact. And finally, birds know how to teleport themselves elsewhere, and will do the same to any marbles they happen to touch, sometimes helping, sometimes hindering.
In two-player games, marbles race each other as well as the clock. Both marbles will be allowed to proceed to the next race as long as they reach the goal line, but the marble that wins the current race gets extra time for the new race. Slower marbles better keep up, because time can also be subtracted if one marble falls too far behind.
If your marble survives the sixth race, you have beaten the game, and will be treated to the ultimate dance of the marbles!