The game board is surrounded by four mechanical, colorful, plastic hippopotamuses operated by levers on their backs. When the lever is pressed, the hippo opens its mouth and extends its head forwards on a telescopic neck. When the lever is released, the head comes down and retracts. Colored plastic marbles are dispensed into the board by each player, and the players repeatedly press the lever on their hippo in order to have it "eat" the marbles, which travel down from under the hippo into a small scoring area for each player. Once all marbles have been captured, the player who has collected the most is the winner.