Catastrophes is a single screen building game where you must carry bricks with a helicopter one at a time from a barge and place them on an island to build a hotel as high as you can. You must try to get the highest score you can over six days and each day is shown by the sun moving from east to west across the top of the screen. Every time you place a new storey then you receive a point and as you build you are competing against the computer or a second player who are building at the same time. As each day progresses there are a couple of natural disasters that occur with the first two being a flood and an earthquake which removes bricks for a short space of time. As the days progress then storm winds and lightning can also occur and a plane keeps flying across the screen, and if touched carrying a brick then you lose the brick. The game is over once the six days are over but even if you can't build anymore on an earlier day the game keeps playing. If you leave the joystick alone then after a certain time the computer takes over but you receive no score.