Based on the 1990 film of the same name, Home Alone puts you in the role of Kevin, the little boy who was played by Macaulay Culkin in the movie. Like the title implies, you have been left home alone by your parents. Not only are your parents gone, you are the only one left in the entire neighborhood. Unless, of course, you count Harry and Marv, a couple of burglars who show up in a van. Your job is to thwart these criminals and keep them from breaking into the houses (including your own) and making off with the loot contained therein.

You begin the game on a sled, zipping around snowy yards, streets, sidewalks, and frozen ponds, looking for the van and running into snowmen to retrieve items you will need (such as tires for stacking) to defeat the criminals. Eventually, the burglars will appear in their van and break into a house. You can try to set traps for the criminals ahead of time, or you can follow them into the houses and try to stop them with your weapons.

You begin each game with three of each kind of trap: blow torches, tacks, ice, grease, and tar. Throughout the game you can pick up extra traps. Instead of picking up weapons in this game, you collect weapon items, which can be used to build weapons. Weapon items include hair dryers, crossbows, cans, ice cream scoops, CD players, cameras, rubber bands, wire, balloons, snowballs, hot coals, pepper, glue, super balls, BBs, rope, batteries, and flashbulbs. You must combine three of these parts to form each weapon, such as a hot coal rifle, a snowball bazooka, a glue rifle, and a sonic wave gun.

There are five different houses to protect in this game: the mansion, the ultra modern house, the old house, the colonial mansion, and the country house. When the crooks have looted an entire house of its possessions, you lose it. If you lose all five houses, you lose the game.