The player controls Jérôme Lange, a detective who attempting to solve a crime by interacting with various characters and collecting clues while further events unveil a complex plot.

The premise of the game begins with Jérôme Lange on a trip to Japan from Madagascar but when a hurricane happens, his boat gets on a anchor in a tiny colonial outpost in the Indian Ocean.

[6][7] Jeux & stratégie discussed that Maupiti Island brings fans of highly complicated detective genre and how it's strange for small games to have imitated literature in their own way.

[8] PC Gamer writer Richard Cobbett felt that despite the game only takes ten minutes to complete, it's have a legitimately clue which has could go on for months or years.

He also discussed that the game was an attempt to create a more realistic detective plot, and played out in pseudo-realtime, with characters constantly moving around the island.