The Adventures of Valdo & Marie is an educational game for kids. The player takes the role of Valdo who is aboard a 16th century Portuguese ship heading for Japan. On the journey, they will explore exotic lands and deal with pirates, sharks, and storms. The main objective of the game is to gather the scattered pieces of a treasure map and reveal a mysterious adventure.

Most of the gameplay consists of the usual adventure activities: searching the environment, collecting items and solving puzzles. Most of them are of the classic item based kind but there are also a few dialogue and logic puzzles. Additionally the player has to solve a few action based mini games, e.g. a Soko-Ban or a Lemmings variant. It is possible to bypass some puzzles entirely which has a impact later in the game: either getting stuck without the possibility of going back or receiving another of the nine endings.

The educational part of the game consists mostly of the historically accurate foundation of the story and the environment. There are also many additional information in text form to read. Some puzzles require this knowledge to be solved, e.g. about ship speed.