Support

Balloon Journey Japan is out on iOS, with more platforms to come. Here is what we can answer today.

Frequently asked

Is it out?

Yes — it is on the App Store now, free. Other platforms are on the way, and the mailing list below hears every update first.

Which platforms?

iOS today. Android, Steam and Nintendo Switch are planned to follow. Which comes first depends on how the work goes — the mailing list will tell you the day each one lands.

How do I play it?

Hold the burner to rise, hold the vent to sink, and ride the layer of wind that is going your way. The whole thing is written up on the how to play page, including how to read the wind sheet and what happens while the app is closed.

What will it cost?

Free to fly, for the foreseeable future. Later on there will be things to buy, and every one of them is cosmetic — premium envelope patterns and shapes, basket trim and styling, characters riding along with you, ornaments and special fittings. We will post the details here once they are settled. Nothing that touches how you fly will ever be for sale: not wind, fuel, distance or time skips. Fairness comes first, and waiting for the right wind is the game — selling a way past it would be selling the game itself.

Do I need an account?

Just open it and fly. There is no sign-up, no email address and no password — your balloon is identified by a random code created on first launch. To move it to a new phone, the game issues a short transfer code; treat that code like a password, because anyone holding it can claim the balloon.

Can I play offline?

You can fly offline — the terrain is cached and your phone works out the wind on its own. Because the journey continues while the app is closed, the game reconnects to catch up with the server when you next have a signal. A few minutes of connection is a full session.

How do notifications work?

They tell you what actually happened on your journey while the app was closed — you ran out of fuel and moored, came down on a mountain, were recovered from the sea, received a greeting, reached a destination. You switch them on and off in your phone’s settings; in the game, ≡ → Settings → Notifications shows whether they are on and takes you straight there. What we keep in order to send them is set out in section 6 of the privacy policy.

Is there chat?

The sky is deliberately quiet. Balloons flying near you are named on your horizon, and you can send them a greeting picked from a fixed list — but there is no way to send another player text, and there never will be. It keeps the sky calm and keeps the age rating low. (The one place you can type is the optional feedback survey, which comes to us and is never shown to anyone else.)

Does it use my real location?

The game never asks for location permission. The only coordinates it works with are your balloon’s position inside the game world.

Is the weather real weather?

The clock and the calendar are real — the time of day and the season match yours. The wind and the sky are generated from a physical model tied to place and time. The same model runs on the server and on your phone, which is what makes the in-game forecast worth trusting: read it right and the sky does what it said it would.

How large is the map?

All of Japan, as one continuous terrain at full size. There is no stage select and nothing to unlock — you fly wherever the wind takes you, and the sea is the edge of the world.

Still stuck?

Bug reports, questions and press enquiries all go through the contact form. If you are reporting a problem, telling us your device model and OS version saves a round trip. For how the game itself works, start with how to play.