In Pendulum, each player is a powerful, unique noble vying to succeed the Timeless King as the true ruler of Dunya. Players command their workers, execute stratagems, and expand the provinces in their domain in real time to gain resources and move up the 4 victory tracks: power, prestige, popularity, and legendary achievement.

Players must use actual time as a resource in managing their strategy to best their opponents, using time on different action types and balancing it with time spent planning and analyzing. The winner will be the player who manages and invests their time most effectively, not the player who acts the quickest.