The object of the game is to score the most points by competing against other great white sharks for a limited supply of prey.
There are two levels of play. In the introductory game, the sharks circle around the outer board, attacking each other when they catch up or from the Circle or Attack spaces. After each fight, the winner takes 5 prey tokens from the loser. "Starve" and you lose a turn. Other spaces make you lose or gain prey tokens, and the Feeding Frenzy space causes a fight royale.
In the full game, the inner part of the board represents the prey population; when your movement allows, you can "dip" into and out of this part of the board to eat prey. Prey reproduces periodically, replenishing the inner board. Whoever fed the most after 10 to 20 rounds (depending on the number of players) wins. But if you're too greedy and you wipe out all prey, all sharks starve and everyone loses!