Hey everyone,
We just released JIN, a turn-based strategy board game, and wanted to share it with the Unity community since it was built entirely in Unity.
JIN is a traditional-inspired board game developed by NipsApp Game Studios a full-cycle game development company founded in India where you move pieces across a grid, combine them by stacking to increase their value, and capture your opponent by landing with equal or lower strength. There is no dice, no card draws, no randomness at all. Every outcome comes from the decisions you make on the board.
The idea started simple. We wanted to make a strategy game that feels like chess in terms of depth but plays more like a fast, modern board game. Something you can learn in a few minutes but keep coming back to because the tactics get deeper the more you play.
What we focused on during development
Clean rules, deep tactics. The core loop is small. Move, combine, capture. But the interactions between pieces, the neutral zone in the middle of the board, and the scoring system create a lot of interesting decisions every turn. One wrong move can completely flip the match.
Calm aesthetic. We went with a minimal 3D look. Soft colors, smooth animations, and a relaxing vibe. We wanted the game to feel calm even when the strategy gets intense. Think of it as a board game you would play with a cup of tea.
Multiplayer and single player. JIN supports both local multiplayer and single player modes. On Steam, you can play against a friend on the same screen or challenge yourself solo. The iOS version is also available for mobile play.
Performance and feel. Since it is a board game, we did not need to push polygon counts. Instead we spent a lot of time on how the game feels. Piece movement, stacking animations, camera transitions, turn feedback. Small things that make each turn feel satisfying.
Some Unity-specific things we dealt with
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Getting the board grid system right took more iteration than expected. We went through a few approaches before settling on one that handled piece stacking, movement validation, and capture logic cleanly.
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UI layout across Steam (PC) and iOS required careful planning. Same game, different input methods and screen sizes. We used Unity’s Canvas Scaler and adaptive layouts but still had to do manual tweaks for certain edge cases.
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Turn-based game flow in Unity can be tricky if you are used to building real-time games. We ended up building a simple state machine to manage turns, animations, and input locking so nothing felt janky between moves.
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Keeping the build size small on iOS while maintaining visual quality on PC was a balancing act. Asset compression and platform-specific texture settings helped a lot.
Where to play
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Steam (PC): JIN is free to play on Steam. You can search for “JIN” on the Steam store or look for it under Strategy / Board Game tags. Developer: NipsApp Game Studios and Cronk Design and Company. Publisher: Cronk Design and Company.
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iOS: Also available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.
What is next
We are listening to player feedback and planning updates. If the community likes it, we want to add online multiplayer, more board variations, and possibly new piece types that change the strategy layer.
Why we are sharing this here
We are not here to sell anything. JIN is free to play. We just wanted to show what we built in Unity and maybe start a conversation with others who have worked on board games or turn-based strategy games in the engine. If you have questions about the grid system, the state machine, the cross-platform setup, or anything else, happy to talk about it.
Would love to hear your thoughts. And if you play it, let us know what you think of the balance and the feel. We are still tuning things.
APP STORE LINK - ‎Jin - Multiplayer Board Game App - App Store
STEAM LINK - JIN on Steam
Thanks for reading.