Own a Balloon and Fly It Across Japan — "Balloon Journey Japan"

September 11, 2026 — UNVELL Inc.

UNVELL Inc. has released "Balloon Journey Japan," a new kind of game, on the App Store.

What makes this game what it is: the balloon is yours, and you can take it anywhere in the sky over Japan.

And the Japan inside the game is the real one, built from the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan's survey data. Mountains, coastlines, lakes, inland seas, straits and rivers all keep their real shapes. Mount Fuji, the Japan Alps, the Kanmon Strait, the Tsugaru Strait — wherever you point, you can drift there.

Weather, air and rain are reproduced with the same care. Time runs in step with the real world, so sunrises, sunsets and seas of cloud arrive at the hour they actually would. It is a quiet game: you work the balloon gently and watch Japan go by underneath.

How to Play

There are only two controls, at the bottom right of the screen: burn and vent. Burn and the balloon rises; vent and it sinks.

Because the wind blows a different way at every height, the game is this: read the wind sheet, climb or descend to the layer heading where you want to go — and then let the wind carry you there.

You also need fuel to stay up. Holding altitude burns it, and when it runs out the balloon comes down and moors. A little is topped up each time you open the app.

The Wind Forecast

Tap the wind line at the bottom left and the wind sheet opens.

The sheet shows the wind direction at each altitude above sea level, out to twelve hours ahead. You decide how long you want to travel and which way you want to go, and pick a height accordingly.

Below the grid, the game tells you where each choice actually lands you, by name:

Stay as you are for 24 h — E 250km 双葉町 Descend to 1000 m — Barely moving · S 9km Climb to 3500 m — NE 182km 村上市 Climb to 4000 m — W 194km 羽咋市

If no layer is heading your way, waiting is a legitimate move. You cannot choose the wind, but the wind changes.

A trick: fly between two layers

If every altitude has its own wind, then sitting between two of them means catching a share of both.

Say that three hours from now the wind at 2,000 m comes from the south, and at 2,500 m it comes from the east. Hold your balloon at around 2,250 m and you take both — and travel northwest.

Lean toward one height or the other and the mix changes with you. That is how you steer toward a destination, little by little, and it is close to how a real balloon is flown.

It Keeps Flying While the App Is Closed

Set your altitude, put the phone away, and let the wind do the work. That is the heart of the game.

The balloon keeps flying on the server while the app is closed. Set a height before bed, wake up to find you have arrived — that feeling is hard to beat.

The next time you open the app, it shows where you went and how far you drifted, drawn on the map — "Over 1 h 3 min, drifted S 24 km." Any missions you completed and any badges you passed over while you were away are handed to you at the same moment.

Notifications only go out when something has happened: you ran out of fuel and came down, you landed on a mountain or the ground, you were recovered from the sea, someone greeted you, or you completed a mission. This is not a game that should be calling you all day, so those are the only times it makes a sound.

Missions

Missions are offered three at a time, under the heading "Where the wind can take you right now."

Each comes with a distance and a window — "W 28 km · within 3 h" — and you can hold only one at a time. They are only ever drawn from directions today's sky can actually reach, so you will never be handed a target that fights the wind.

As the distance of the missions you complete adds up, your rank rises from Wind Apprentice to Wind Reader, Cloud Rider, Sky Traveller, and onward.

Badges

Badges are a record of the journey that fills itself in as you pass by.

The 47 prefectures, the 100 Famous Mountains, the four cardinal points of the mainland and its capes — each is a chapter, and each badge is settled the moment you pass overhead. You do not have to have the app open to collect them; anything you drift over while away is waiting the next time you look.

Circle the whole country, or fill in the 100 mountains one by one. It gives a journey at the mercy of the wind a gentle sense of purpose.

Weather: Day, Night and Rain

The weather is not a loop of fixed patterns — it is generated from the day and the place. Cloud cover, cloud base, rain and visibility differ every time, so the same sky never comes twice.

The clock runs with the real one, so opening the app at night means a night sky. After dark the envelope glows from the burner like a paper lantern, and the whole game looks different.

Free to Play

For the time being the game is entirely free, and there are no ads of any kind.

In future we are considering paid content on the decorative side — balloon designs, and pet characters riding in the basket. We will introduce those properly when they arrive.

Balloons Nearby

Balloons flying near you appear as name tags in the sky, and in a list.

There is no free-text messaging. What you can send are set greetings — "Hello!", "Nice wind today", "Safe travels." We wanted the sky to stay calm for everyone, so it was built this way from the start.

Sharing a layer with someone else, and travelling together for an afternoon, is a different pleasure from flying alone.

Balloon Festivals

We are planning to hold balloon festivals on a regular schedule.

When you enter one, the game carries your balloon to the venue automatically — the only teleport in the entire game. On the day, a great many balloons gather in one place, and the sky fills with them.

Rising together into the calm air at dawn is the highlight of a real festival, too.

This feature is still in planning; we will announce it properly once it is ready.

Who It's For

• Anyone looking for a quiet game that moves slowly through beautiful places
• Anyone who prefers to open an app for a few minutes a day and make steady progress
• Anyone who would like to see Japan at its real shape and real scale
• Anyone interested in balloons, weather, and reading the wind

Product Overview

Getting started takes one name and one balloon design. No email address, no password. When you change phones, a short transfer code brings the balloon with you.

What's Next

Android, Steam (Windows) and Nintendo Switch versions are in preparation.

News goes out through the official Instagram account, @balloon_journey_japan. The game has only just launched, so we would be glad to hear what you think — it goes straight into what we build next.

Download

Free on the App Store.

• App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/balloon-journey-japan/id6802740313
• Official site: https://balloonjapan.com/

About UNVELL Inc.

UNVELL Inc. is a software company built around the idea of "Keep Simple, Keep Smart." Our main business is the spreadsheet component ReoGrid for business systems, alongside long-running research in 3D rendering and engine development and consulting work for other companies.

The terrain, sky, clouds and rain in this game are all drawn by our own engine. While we were asking ourselves what we could make with that technology, one of our engineers visited a balloon festival in Kamishihoro, Hokkaido, and came back in love with balloons — which is how this game came to be.

Company site: https://unvell.com

Contact

• UNVELL Inc.
• E-mail: info@unvell.com
• Web: https://balloonjapan.com/

Elevation data: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. Building and road data: MLIT PLATEAU and OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).