[5] The player controls a flashlight and harpoon-gun equipped archaeologist who must ascend a series of rocky platforms to reach a phoenix bird.

The player has to avoid ferocious man-sized dinosaurs and red-haired cavemen without any direct means of offense.

The only ways to defeat the opponents are to either daze them with the flashlight, or wait for them to be suspended on a harpoon rope and cause them fall down, an element which adds a certain complexity to the game.

Roc'n Rope was among Konami's early arcade hits, including Scramble (1981), Frogger (1981), and Yie Ar Kung-Fu (1984).

It became the basis for Capcom's 1987 game Bionic Commando, which Tokuro Fujiwara intended to be an expanded version of Roc'n Rope.