Tomb of Four Kings is a fantasy adventure card game for a single player using a standard 52 deck of playing cards and one joker. With each turn, you defeat monsters, disarm traps, and open doors as you explore a dark dungeon. Along the way you collect treasure, gain skills, even use magic. But death awaits those who linger too long, and if all your torches burn out you will be lost in the dungeon forever. The objective is to find the tomb hoards of four ancient kings, collect as much additional treasure as possible, and make it out alive.

The spread is the standard layout for the game. At the top of the spread is an area where you play torches (A), as they appear. In the middle of the spread is the dungeon area itself. Turns descending into the dungeon are played in a row from left to right. This row is called the delve. The turns ascending from the depths of the dungeon are played underneath the delve from right to left, with one turn for each turn of the delve except the turn-around point. This is called the retreat. Below the dungeon area, from left to right are a discard area, a hit point counter, and a hand where you collect your treasure, tomb hoards, skill cards, and magic scroll.

The game is divided into turns. Each turn, you play a series of cards in the dungeon area. The turn represents an encounter as you explore the vast and sprawling dungeon. Layer the cards in a column while the turn is active. When the turn is over, stack those cards face down before moving on to the next turn. Each turn starts by playing cards from the deck until an encounter card appears.

If you make it out of the dungeon alive, add up all the treasure in your hand. If you found all four kings and survived, you have won the game, regardless of points. Multiply total points by 100 to calculate the value of your treasure in gold pieces.