The goal of Highway to Shell is to navigate your turtles safely across the road to the nature preserve while knocking your enemies back to the zoo with some unfriendly traffic. The players face up to 6 lanes of dangerous highway they must attempt to guide their turtles across. As turtles move along the road more turtles are randomly placed out at the edge of the road. The players take turns playing cards from their hands to move turtles, send vehicles down a lane of the highway, or place obstacles on the road to effect movement the movement of turtles and vehicles. After the required number of turtles make it across the road, players score points depending on how close the turtles are to the preserve.