Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends is a game primarily meant for children.

Before going into the game proper, players are first given five different coloring book pages to fill in with each page based on the television show's characters.

The main portion of the game is split into three modes. The modes are Game, Race, and Explore. Game mode has Sir Topham Hatt giving the player objectives such as finding a mine car, a log car, and a passenger car, and bringing them to a specific train station. The more speedier the player completes their task the higher their score will be. Race mode has the player racing against an opposing train. Explore mode allows the player to freely drive around on the train tracks with no particular objectives. The game offers an easy, medium, and hard difficulty level.