I had never heard of Clu Clu Land during the heyday of the NES, and I wouldn’t until years after the system was out of favor with the masses and I unlocked it in my copy of Animal Crossing. Old NES games in Animal Crossing didn’t come with manuals, so I have to admit that I don’t really know what’s going on. I was able to piece some info together using my game playing knowledge and the description found on my Super Smash Bros. Melee Trophy, but I’m willing to admit that my understanding might be somewhat incomplete.
Bubbles, the protagonist, must navigate what looks like a game of Dots. The ‘dots’ in this case being objects that she can grab onto. She will go in a straight line forward unless she reaches out and grabs hold of one of the dots, or smashes into something to turn around. Grabbing onto the ‘dots’ will allow her to turn and go a different direction. Her goal, it would appear, is to search out and uncover shiny objects that will often be in the outline of a simple shape. She must do all of this while avoiding the sea-urchin things that are pursuing her. Find all the shiny things, move on to the next level where the sea urchins move faster and are more aggressively and the pattern that the shiny things are in changes.
I wasn’t ever able to get past more than about two waves, but I also didn’t really enjoy the game all that much to begin with. I’m not terribly disappointed that I didn’t get to play this during the NES’s lifetime.