Bright · Abstract strategy game
Two rules. A lifetime of shapes.
A small abstract strategy game, made on the side. Two rules, one kind of move and one kind of capture — and what a stone can do is decided entirely by the company it keeps.
Free, no account, no ads. Runs in your browser, and offline.
The promise
Free, and no catch.
Bright is here to be played, not sold. No account, no ads, no unlocks, no subscription — not now and not later. If it ever gains online play, that will be free too.
No account
Open the page and play. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to confirm.
Nothing to buy
No coins, no skins, no pro version. The whole game is there from the first move.
Nothing about you
No tracking, no advertising, no analytics. The game never leaves your device.
What it is
A board game you could rebuild with pebbles.
Nine by nine points, identical stones on both sides, two rules. Bright is deliberately designed to work on a board scratched into the sand exactly as it works on a screen. The app adds nothing the game needs — it only makes visible what is already standing on the board.
The rules
Both of them fit on a postcard.
Light is how far you go
A stone’s Light is the number of friendly stones touching it. It slides in a straight line up to Light + 1 points. You gather light by standing among friends — and spend it in a single leap.
Shadow is how you go out
After every move the whole board is judged at once. A stone touched by four enemies goes out — or by just two, if it stands entirely alone. Because everything is removed together, one move can start an avalanche.
That is all of it: one kind of move and one kind of capture, the same for every stone. Each side has a single Bright, and even that is not an exception — it simply counts as two stones.
Winning
Three ways a game ends.
Eclipse
The other side’s Bright goes out. The Bright counts double for everything — it gives double light and casts double shadow.
Kindling
Your Bright stands on the Hearth at the centre of the board with Light 4. Hold that, and you win.
Smothered
Whoever is to move and has no legal move left loses.
Ways to play
What is here today — and what is coming.
Against the engine
Four strengths, from one that loses graciously to one that reads avalanches several moves deep. It runs in your browser, not on a server.
Two players, one screen
Two people, one board, taking turns. At a table, on a train, with no connection at all.
Online against others
Playing other people over the network is firmly on the way — rooms you can share, and games you can come back to. It ships when it is good enough, and it will cost nothing.
Learning it
The board counts along with you.
Bright takes two minutes to explain and is still hard to see: the thing a new player cannot do is count shadows across a whole board. So the game counts with them — and does it in a way you can switch off one rung at a time.
The grading is not an engine opinion. It is the rules applied literally, one half-move for each side.
- A dashed red ring goes round any stone a single enemy move could put out.
- An arc round each stone shows how much shadow it can still bear.
- Pick a stone up and every point it can reach is graded: green survives, red does not.
- A training section of nineteen positions, one rule each.
Privacy
The game collects nothing.
No account, no analytics, no advertising, no cookie banner — because there are no cookies to consent to. The rules engine and the opponent both run in your browser; once the page has loaded, the game talks to nobody.
- One entry in local storage: how far you have got with the lessons.
- It never leaves the device and is not synced anywhere.
- With the connection switched off, the game keeps working completely.
Questions
Answered briefly.
- Is Bright really free?
- Yes, completely and permanently. There is no payment path, no advertising and no paid tier — and it is not an introductory offer.
- Do I need an account?
- No. Open the page and play straight away. There is nothing to create and nothing to confirm.
- Can I play other people online?
- Not yet. Today you play the engine, or a friend on the same device. Online play is planned and will also be free.
- Does it work offline?
- Yes. After the first load everything runs in your browser. You can disconnect and keep playing.
- Is Bright a well-known game?
- No, it is new. It stands in the tradition of abstract strategy games like Go or Hex: few rules, a lot of depth, no luck.
- How long is a game?
- Usually ten to twenty minutes. The rules take two minutes to learn.