Orc Attack: You Against the Hordes is a side-view single screen game where you must move along the top of your castle wall to protect the castle from hordes of Orcs. You move left or right and movement is like you are on ice where you must compensate for your inertia to stop in the correct position. At the bottom of the screen are the Orcs and they move into a position with a ladder and climb up some of the way. Other Orcs will then place their ladder on top of that ladder to get higher. To defend the castle against the Orcs you have to drop rocks on they heads and you must go to either side of the screen where a rock icon is and then you must find a gap in the battlements to drop the rock and kill the Orcs. If there is no gap over any Orcs then you can remove the Battlement by repeatedly hitting it.

If any Orcs reach the top of the castle then sword icons appear at the sides of the screen and this must be collected and you can hit the Orcs to make them fall. If there are no more Orcs at the top of the castle then the rock icons appear again. As you fight the Orcs with your sword they can also fight back and if you are hit then you receive a wound and when you receive ten then you lose one of two lives. After a certain time, boiling oil appears and when dropped destroys all ladders and kills all the Orcs but it only appears when no orcs are at the top of the castle. A pyramid of Orcs then appears to show how many you have killed before you go to the next level. Other Orcs that make an appearance are Orcs with bow and arrows, Demon Trolls, and Ninja Orcs who don't need ladders to climb walls and rocks can't kill them.