Reederei is a turn-based trading game where players can buy and sell goods to make profit. The game is totally menu driven and there are no action sequences.

While playing, players try to run an Hamburg based maritime company. On each turn, each player has an option to send their ship to another seaport, buy goods from there and return to Hamburg where they can sell it for a good price. Players are also expected to buy ships to enhance their ship convoy thus increasing their buying quota from other seaports.

The goal of the game is to increase company value to a certain score. This score depends on the game difficulty. First player reaches this score (either human or computer) wins the game.