Balloon Journey Japan

Your balloon, your call.

Balloon Journey Japan is a slow travel game set over the real Japan — the real Mount Fuji, the real Japan Alps, the real Lake Biwa. If a place exists in Japan, you can drift over it.

There is no steering toward a destination. The sky drifts a different way at every altitude, so you find the layer that is going where you want to go, rise into it, and let the wind carry you. You choose your height; the wind chooses everything else.

■ IT KEEPS FLYING WHILE YOU ARE AWAY Close the app and the balloon stays in the air — our server flies it in real time. Open it a few hours later, or the next morning, and a "welcome back" is waiting: how far the wind carried you, and what you passed over on the way. This is not a game that asks you to hold your phone all day.

■ TWO CONTROLS, AND NOTHING ELSE Burn to rise, vent to sink. Both act only while you hold them, and the balloon settles at the height where you let go. There is no screen for typing in an altitude. Altitude is the result, not the instruction — what you are really choosing is which wind to ride.

■ A DIFFERENT WIND AT EVERY HEIGHT Open the wind sheet and it lists, altitude by altitude, where you would be six hours from now. Read it, climb, and wait. That is the whole game.

■ THE REAL JAPAN The ground is baked from Japan's national elevation data: real mountains, real coastlines, real lakes, all at full size. The weather is not decoration either — cloud cover, cloud base, rain and visibility are generated from where you are and what time it is, so one evening is grey and drizzling and the next night is full of stars. The same sky never comes back twice.

■ THE LOGBOOK FILLS ITSELF 47 Prefectures, 100 Famous Peaks, Lakes, Capes and Edges, Seasons, Distance. Anything you drift over is written down without you aiming for it — including everything you passed while the app was closed, handed to you the next time you open it.

■ ONE DESTINATION AT A TIME "Somewhere near there, within so many hours." Offered only from the directions today's sky can actually reach, so you are never dealt an impossible card.

■ QUIET COMPANY Balloons flying nearby appear in a list, and you can send them a fixed greeting. You never type a message to anyone — even your name is assembled from words the game offers you.

■ FUEL IS A REASON TO COME DOWN Holding altitude burns fuel. Run out and the balloon descends and moors. Every time you open the app, a little is replaced.

■ FREE TO FLY, AND FREE TO KEEP FLYING No ads: no banners, no videos, no advertising ID, nothing tracking you. And nothing you can buy will carry you further than the wind does — fuel is not sold, altitude is not sold, and no badge or destination sits behind a purchase. Everyone flies the same sky.

iOS 16 or later / Languages: English, Japanese. Place names are shown in Japanese — they come from the national survey and are not transliterated. Terrain data: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) elevation tiles / MLIT PLATEAU / OpenStreetMap (ODbL)