Bright Eyed, New High-elf IF (14K words so far, updated on June 20. 2025)

Greetings, I’ve started working on my first IF game, Bright Eyed.

Bright Eyed is my first interactive fantasy epic inspired by Tolkien’s Silmarillion. Explore the wondrous world and high culture of the high elves named the Thanai, an ancient civilization steeped in tradition, yet now standing on the brink of change.

As a Thanai Lord, second in your gifts and favor of the Illuminating Star only to the King himself, and as the Lord most familiar with human societies, you are the one entrusted with uncovering the forces reshaping the world. You will have to navigate the unraveling of ancient powers, political intrigue, and mystical rites of the past to succeed.

Your choices will ultimately shape the destiny of the Thanai and their place in the world. Will you preserve tradition, challenge isolation, or forge an unprecedented path of your own? The fate of realms rests in your hands.

The game has 14K words so far. I plan on updating this every month or so.

Link to the current demo: Bright Eyed by Jonathan Michaelson

Update 1: Word count went from 10K to about 14K - only a little bit in terms of new chapters was newly added, but I added some more choices, added a few extra branches, and overall edited and polished the game so far, as wlel as incorporated some suggestions from the feedback received!

You play as a Thanai Lord, meaning there is male gender lock. There are reasons for that, which you will probably figure out soon if you read the demo.

You can customize your bodily appearance, the nature of your gifts and powers and as the story progresses, your personality too and ultimately, what path to pursue (good or evil).

The starting segments include a RO that is for the moment part of the characters life, but in the coming chapters she will be absent from the story and you will be later able to either abandon or resume relations with her down the line.

If you by any chance wish to support me, I have a ko-fi link! https://ko-fi.com/jonathanmichaelson

Any and all feedback is welcome!

52 Likes

Demo link doesnt work unfortunately.

Is it jsut me or is it impossible to scroll?

1 Like

Oh darn, it is. It worked fine before I made it public. Sorry about that, I am stil learnign the ropes… Do you have any idea what might be causing this

Possibly because its on Itch.io? most people use cogdemos

2 Likes

I can make a cogdemos link!

2 Likes

yay

Try again, had to change some setting - apparently itch demands that you manually enable scrolling

Should work now! Sorry about that.

Please do

1 Like

Just wanted to say I’m really enjoying the writing. But I did want to give a bit of feedback on the structure. Some of these pages are really long — like full scrolls of text without a break — and I found myself getting a bit mentally tired while reading. A few times I even accidentally skipped a line or two just trying to keep track.

4 Likes

I get it. What would be a good way to fix that? More choices in between, page breaks?

Itch should work now, will create the other one later too though. Thanks for any feedback!

1 Like

it works now :smiley:

1 Like

Honestly, choices are the best way to handle that, but if they’re just empty and don’t add anything — no effect or flavor — then I’d actually prefer page breaks. They feel more fulfilling in that case.

3 Likes

Got it, thanks a lot for the feedback. Will probably add a blend of the two in the next update.

1 Like

Nice! I hope for your feedback!

That’s pretty unique.

1 Like

I’m enjoying this so far. It’s rare that I see a Tolkien-esque IF.

However, it seems like quotation marks are missing when the characters talk. I find that rather jarring.

4 Likes

The story is interesting but I really hope you add quotation marks

7 Likes