In Puerto Rico assume the roles of colonial governors on the island of Puerto Rico. The aim of the game is to amass victory points by shipping goods to the Europe or by constructing buildings. Players earn victory points for owning buildings, for shipping goods, and for manned ''large buildings.'' Each player's accumulated shipping chips are kept face down and come in denominations of one or five. This prevents other players from being able to determine the exact score of another player. Goods and doubloons are placed in clear view of other players and the totals of each can always be requested by a player. As the game enters its later stages, the unknown quantity of shipping tokens and its denominations require players to consider their options before choosing a role that can end the game.

Some pre-game instruction is available for players not already familiar with game play, compliments of the gaming crew from Roll2Play.