Flockbay vs Ziva: Godot inside a free AI app, or an AI agent inside your Godot

Ask either tool for a double jump and you get GDScript back that reads correctly: an @export for the jump velocity, a counter that resets when is_on_floor() is true, a second impulse while the counter is under two. The bugs that matter in a double jump do not show in that code. The second jump fires on the same frame as the first, or the counter never resets after you walk off a ledge. You only find out by pressing Space twice and watching.

That is where Flockbay and Ziva part ways. Ziva is an AI coding agent inside the Godot editor you already run. Flockbay is a desktop app with the official Godot engine inside it, whose AI builds the game and then plays it to check the work. Both can press Play. What differs is where you work, who pays for the model, and how much of the game the AI is meant to build.

Every fact about Ziva below was read on Ziva's own pages on 13 October 2026. Where those pages disagree with each other, this post says what each one says.

Ziva installs as an add-on, addons/ziva_agent, in your project, for Godot 4.2 and later on Windows, macOS and Linux. Its panel sits in the editor you already know, beside your layout, your Godot version and your other plugins. It inspects the open scene tree, writes and refactors GDScript and C#, builds and edits scenes, nodes, signals and resources, and reads editor errors live.

Flockbay ships the official Godot 4.7.2 release, not a fork, and hosts the full Godot editor inside the app: the Scene dock, the Inspector, FileSystem, the Script editor, Output and the Debugger. A new install opens in Simple view, and Full is one switch away. Existing Godot projects open in it. The games it makes are real Godot 4 projects in a folder on your own computer, which stock Godot 4.7.2 opens, and nothing is uploaded unless you publish it to your own GitHub repository.

The trade runs both ways. Ziva joins your install. Flockbay hands you one of its own, already wired to its AI and its world tools, on the official Godot 4.7.2 rather than whatever version your project is pinned to.

More on this: An AI game maker with no sign up: Flockbay builds on a guest account

Flockbay builds and play-tests a whole Godot game for free: free AI every day or your own Claude or ChatGPT, on the official Godot engine. The hosted model is called Demo and is free every day. Your own Claude plan (Pro or Max) or ChatGPT account (any plan, Free included) runs inside the app. Your own agent connects over MCP, or you add an OpenAI or Anthropic API key. Pictures and sound come with the free AI, and a 3D model runs on your own Tripo key. Plans for more hosted AI are optional, and there is no sign-in in front of the first build: the app makes a guest account when it first opens.

Ziva is free if you bring the model. Its site says "Hobby is free with your own Claude Code/Codex provider or local models", and starts its hosted models at Basic, $20 a month after a seven-day trial for eligible accounts. Its Godot Asset Store listing, updated 9 October, gives Hobby "$3/month of included AI usage" as well, and prices the rest: Basic at $20 a month with $60 of AI usage, Pro at $50 with $150, and Ultra at $200 with $600. Claude Sonnet and Opus, Ziva Genius and the Playtest Agent need Pro.

So the two sit close together if you already pay for Claude or ChatGPT: both run on it, at no charge from either. They part ways when you pay for nothing. Flockbay's hosted AI is free every day, while Ziva's site sells its hosted models as a plan.

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Ziva's quick check "opens it in the Game tab, can send input, captures the final screen, and reads runtime errors." Its Full Game Playtest Agent goes further. It launches the game in a sandbox and pauses it to give the model time to think, plays turn by turn with keyboard, mouse and gesture input, and returns pass, fail or blocked with reproduction steps. Ziva says it "can run dozens of instances in parallel", and that "the Playtest Agent needs Pro at $50/month."

Flockbay's AI plays the game to check its own work, on the free AI. It runs the game, sends input events with timing, takes viewport captures and reads the errors the running game reports, with file, line and call stack. The same tools, served to your own agent over MCP, also read the live scene tree, step a paused game one physics tick at a time and read Godot's performance monitors while it runs.

Summer Engine's comparison with Ziva, dated 6 June 2026, says Ziva "cannot play the game". Ziva's own pages, read in October, describe the quick check and the playtester above.

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Ziva works on the code and the scene: scripts, nodes and resources, plus generated sprites and textures, 3D models added to a scene, and TileMapLayer tools from Godot 4.3. Its Plan mode "presents a plan, and asks whether to implement or refine it before starting implementation", and its Ask mode edits nothing.

Flockbay starts a step earlier. Before it builds, it works out a brief with you: what the first playable holds, what comes after, and what is not in this version. It builds nothing until you approve it. Then it writes GDScript and scenes and builds the world with world tools for terrain, water, sky, weather, the player controller and props. When the game is ready, the app exports a standalone build and prepares the Steam store page as a .zip you upload in Steamworks yourself.

The two take different views of undo. Ziva "creates a local restore point immediately before each message runs." Undo restores the project files to that point, removes that prompt and every message after it, and puts the prompt back in the composer, so you can change it and send it again. It is a checkpoint per request, and it also rolls back changes you made by hand after that point.

In Flockbay, each change made through the editor, by its AI or by your own agent, is one step in Godot's own undo history, named for what it did, such as "Flockbay: Add Player". Ctrl+Z takes back one step, the same as a change of your own. Project settings and input actions are written by the app rather than the editor, so those sit outside Ctrl+Z. In either tool, commit often: git is still the safety net that covers everything.

Both write the languages Godot developers use. Ziva writes GDScript and C#. Flockbay writes GDScript by default, and C# when the game is already C# or you ask for it.

Ziva can run as a local MCP server, so Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, Zed, Cline and other clients use its Godot tools: inspect the scene tree and project files, create or update nodes, scenes, scripts and resources, read Godot errors, and run and stop the game. The full set is there "while the target project is open in Godot and Ziva is running." Its docs do not say which plan that needs.

Flockbay serves one MCP server, registered as flockbay-stage, free. Your agent gets the open Godot editor with one Ctrl+Z per change, the running game to playtest with timed input events, viewport captures and the live scene tree, and the world tools. Its work lands in its own chat, beside Flockbay's own AI on the same game. The Godot MCP guide has the setup line for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and the rest.

More on this: How to make games in Codex: the Codex CLI, the ChatGPT app, or your ChatGPT plan inside Flockbay

Pick Ziva if you work on an Intel Mac. Ziva ships for Windows (x64 and arm64), macOS (Universal) and Linux (x64 and arm64). The Mac build of Flockbay is for Apple Silicon only, and Flockbay has no build for Windows on Arm or Arm Linux.

Pick Ziva if the project has to stay in your own Godot install: a pinned older 4.x version, a custom editor layout, plugins you depend on, or a team that already works there. Pick it for a local model through Ollama or LM Studio, too. Flockbay needs an internet connection to build, though the game it builds runs locally.

And pick Ziva Pro if a playtester that runs a whole game in many instances at once, and hands back pass or fail verdicts, is worth $50 a month to you. Verdict: Ziva is the pick for an AI agent inside the Godot editor you already run.

Pick Flockbay if you want the AI to cost nothing, every day, without bringing a subscription. Pick it if you want the whole game built, world included, from a brief you approved, on the official Godot engine with the full editor one switch away. Pick it if you want your own Claude Code or Codex to reach the editor, the running game and the world tools through one free MCP server. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, including Intel and AMD Chromebooks with Linux turned on.

Verdict: Flockbay is the pick if you want a whole Godot game built and play-tested for free, on stock Godot.

Commit your project, or copy it, first. Then give both the same task: a room with a door that opens when three switches are pressed. In Ziva, open the project in Godot and ask in its panel. In Flockbay, describe the room, agree the brief and approve it.

Then make two changes in each, play the result yourself and count the files each one touched. Because both leave a Godot project on disk, the one you do not keep costs you an evening and nothing more. The Ziva alternatives and Summer Engine vs Ziva cover the other options.