You can open Flockbay without an account. Sending to Director 1 needs one.
You do not need an account to download Flockbay, open it, make a world, Play, or use the builder. You do need one to send a message to Director 1, because that usage runs over the network and is attached to a person.
The line, drawn exactly
Three separate things happen around this app, and only one of them involves an account. Downloading, installing, opening, Play, and the builder: no account, no email address, no card. Sending a message to Director 1, generated art, and publishing: you sign in. Playing a game you have already built: nothing at all.
That third one matters more than it sounds. What you build is a Godot project in a folder on your own machine, and it becomes an ordinary desktop program. Anybody you hand that program to runs it without a Flockbay account, without our app installed, and without us being involved in any way.
So the account covers exactly one part of this. Not the software, not your files, not the game, not the builder on your machine. The part of building that runs on hardware which is not yours.
Why building needs one
Director 1 writes the GDScript for your game through a model that runs over the network, and every request costs real money to serve. Asset generation works the same way, and so does the world data the builder pulls in. Those costs attach to a person. An account is how they attach.
There is no anonymous version of that arrangement. A tool doing this work either asks you to sign in when you send, or hands you a small allowance and then asks you to sign in when it runs out, which is the same requirement with a worse moment of discovery.
The sign-in shows up at send, not before you have opened the app. You can make a world, Play, and arrange it first. Director 1 is the moment it is needed.
What the account is not
It is not storage. Your projects sit in folders on your own disk. Nothing of yours is held on our side, so there is no saved version of your work that signing in unlocks, and no copy of it we could misplace.
It is not a licence to the engine. Godot is open source and free, and a copy of it ships inside the app on every plan, the free one included. The account does not rent you a renderer.
It is not a seat either. There is no team plan, no per-seat pricing and no enterprise tier. One person, one account, one desktop app.
What the free plan asks for
Not a card. The free plan gives you the whole world builder and the full engine, plus a trial of the AI features. What Indie at $10 a month adds is that AI assistance in full.
Building by hand is not the part that meters. Sculpting terrain, drawing a lake, setting the weather, placing buildings and characters is you doing work on your own machine. What draws down a plan is asking Director 1 for behaviour and generating assets, because those are the parts that leave your computer.
So the free plan is a real answer to the objection the account raises. You can sign in, spend an evening on a world, and find out whether any of this suits you before money enters the conversation.
Who the account is genuinely a problem for
People who need a tool that runs entirely on their own machine with nothing phoning out. That is a legitimate requirement, and this is not the tool for it. Godot on its own is free, open source, needs no account and needs no connection. It also expects you to write the code, which is the whole of the trade.
You can try Play and the builder without deciding anything at all. An email address shows up when you send a message to Director 1. That is a smaller ask than most tools in this space make, and it is still an ask, which is why it belongs at the top of the page rather than buried in a footer.
Questions
- Can I download Flockbay without an account?
- Yes. The download for Mac and Windows does not ask for an email address, an account or a card.
- Do I need an account to build a game?
- Not to open the app, make a world, Play, or use the builder. You need one to send a message to Director 1, and for generated art and publishing, because that usage runs over the network.
- Does anyone need an account to play the game I made?
- No. The finished game is an ordinary desktop program. Whoever you give it to runs it without our app, without an account and without a connection.
- Does the free plan need a credit card?
- No. The free plan does not ask for one. Indie is $10 a month if you want AI assistance later.
- Is there a team or shared account?
- No. There is no team plan, no per-seat pricing and no enterprise tier. It is one person on one desktop app.
- Where do my projects live?
- In folders on your own disk, as ordinary Godot projects. They are not stored on our servers, so the account is not holding anything of yours.