Rule of Rose is a survival horror game in which the player, who controls Jennifer, explores the game environments and furthers the plot by accomplishing tasks and experiencing cut-scenes while sporadically encountering enemies and bosses.

Taking place in England in 1930, Rule of Rose centers on Jennifer, a young woman who is led to an abandoned orphanage by a small boy.

March, 1930. A young girl named Jennifer, whose parents were killed in a tragic airship accident, is taken to the Rose Garden Orphanage, located in a remote portion of the English countryside.

What Jennifer discovers is a dilapidated building and a ragtag mob of children who call themselves the "Aristocracy of the Red Crayon." The demented residents of Rose Garden kidnap Jennifer and take her into the dark heart of an impossibly large zeppelin, on a meandering course for a distant land. Now, with the help of a canine companion named Brown, Jennifer has to find valuable gifts for the Aristocracy, or suffer a fatal punishment for her insolence...