Dark Maiden is a cooperative adventure games in which the players advance through 4 different sites (village, forest, mountains and finally the Castle of the Dark Maiden) completing the required points in each site, to face the final bosses of each site. The last enemy to defeat is the Dark Maiden.
On their turn, a player can walk 1 field and draw 1 card or run 2 fields and draw 2 cards. Afterwards, all cards of all players are resolved. The cards can contain dangers or opportunities, and also the enemies that need to be defeated. Battle is resolved by dice. Each time a site boss is defeated, players will advance to the next site, but so will the boss of the previous site who will now become a subordinate boss on the new site, therefore increasing the difficulty of each site.
Players win if at least one of them survives and kills the Dark Maiden before all the players' lives are finished. The players can decide on how many lives to start with to adjust the difficulty level.