Y'n Hsi is a Buddhist monk whose father was murdered by a warlord called Ch'un Kuei. In order to defeat the tyrant and regain his family's palace, he must tread the golden path, the road to transcendence.

The Golden Path is a point and click adventure game. Instead of using verbs like in Maniac Mansion, the player controls the monk with the mouse by moving a cursor shaped like a Chinese letter and clicking directly at him on the screen. Left-clicking on a spot on the ground moves the monk towards it. Left-clicking below Y'n Hsi makes him bend over to drop or pick objects on the ground. Left-clicking above his head makes him try to use the object he is holding at the moment (if it is not possible to do so, a question mark appears). Right-clicking makes him punch and kick, his defense against enemies. Every time the monk is hit, the inventory briefly flashes. A book sits at the bottom-left of the screen, and serves as a hint system of sorts. When clicking on it, a message about the screen appears with explanations to events, characters and objects. Besides the book is the inventory with four slots for objects. Left-clicking on an object places it on Y'n Hsi hands. Above the inventory is a slowly withering vine as the energy bar. It grows with the completion of certain tasks.

The main objective is to follow the golden path. Literally. On the bottom-right of the screen there is a small version of the main game screen that shows the path and its bifurcations. The character moves from screen to screen collecting things laying around, fighting the occasional enemy and using the right object at the right place.

Pressing S saves the game, while typing L loads it.

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