The Great Snark Rescue is played on a hex map depicting a park. Certain hexes are designated as starting spaces for snarks, snark trackers (which are owned by the players), and transportation pieces. On each turn players move their trackers and attempt to land them on snarks, which rescues them. The object is to rescue the majority of the snarks.
The terrain affects movement; a tracker must stop when entering a forest hex and cannot normally enter water hexes. A tracker can move onto a transportation piece and then use it, which may let it move farther (e.g. a bicycle can move any distance, but only along a path) and/or circumvent movement restrictions (e.g., a boat can go in the water and a hot-air balloon can cross water and forest hexes).
Variants allow for free setup of the various pieces.
Since each side has two trackers, the game can be played by four players in teams, with each player controlling one tracker.