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...