Death River is a top-down horizontal shooter that constantly scrolls from right to left, and your mission in your boat is to rescue hostages. To get a hostage you will have to blow up the other boats on the river and occasionally a hostage will appear in the water and you will try to pick it up. Your boat can carry five hostages at a time, any more and you will capsize but there are docks (shown by the letter H) on the sides and touching them will empty your boat. The fuel gauge decreases as you go down the river, but you can pick up fuel on the sides. You have to avoid mines in the water and if you touch a mine, a boat, the sides of the river, run out of fuel or capsize, you lose one of the three lives.
