Hail to the Chimp is a political satire/party game in the vein of the Mario Party series. In the "Animal Kingdom", the King Lion has disappeared after being implicated in a series of scandals and as a result, animals across the kingdom demand a new king by holding an election. The election becomes a stalemate, leading the lowliest form of animals, Clams, with the deciding vote. As a result, each candidate must compete in a free-for-all to get the Clam vote and become the new president.

The gameplay mostly consists of competing on themed party boards, such as ships, a volcano and a snowy tundra, collecting clams to score points and raise their overall vote count while avoiding obstacles and attacks from rival opponents. The results of each contest are showed in a news-themed stats screen, showing overall stats presented by animal newscasters such as a turtle and a woodpecker named Woodchuck Chumley. Players can also form alliances after certain stages and recruit rival candidates to help them in later stages, only later to turn against them as well.

There are ten animals to choose (a hippo, armadillo, polar bear, octopus, platypus, and the game's namesake chimp) in the multiplayer mode, which has four human opponents competing against each other, but in the single-player "Campaign" mode, the player competes in ten stages, each themed for a certain animal during the game, competing in a series events aimed towards that character that they are controlling. There are also four opponents during the "Campaign" mode, but instead has three CPU opponents in place of human opponents.