Based on the summer 2003 movie starring characters from Nickelodeon's The Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys, Rugrats Go Wild is an action game taking place on a tropical island inhabited by crabs, monkeys, leopards, and other potentially dangerous animals. The object is to reunite both the Rugrats characters and Eliza Thornberry with their parents hidden somewhere on the island. To accomplish this task, players must first collect the clues leading to each person's whereabouts.
Players will traverse the island from an overhead perspective and participate in mini-games offering traditional platforming action or top-down racing sequences with the Commvee, a stroller, or even an inner tube. The side-scrolling stages involve knocking out a specific number of critters using the squishy "Goosh Balls" collected during the exploration phase. The racing scenes have players trying to collect a certain number of items or to catch up with an animal within the time limit. Both mini-game types conclude with a boss character that must either be avoided or defeated using Goosh Balls.
While players initially begin as Tommy Pickles, other characters will become playable as they are encountered during the trek. Eliza Thornberry and the duo of Lil and Phil are available to control, and players will be able to meet Chuckie, Angelica, Kimi, and more. A password system is used to resume progress during the game, and options include two types of control configurations for the racing sequences as well as individual toggles for both sound and music.