What runs in the cloud, and what runs on your machine
By Eduardo Orellana · Updated
The line is simple and worth stating exactly. Building needs the network. Playing does not. Nothing about your game is rendered, streamed or executed on somebody else's hardware. Flockbay is free, AI included: free hosted AI every day, or your own Claude, ChatGPT, agent or API key. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, on the official Godot engine.
AppImage, x86_64. Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 39 or newer.
Intel or AMD Chromebook, with Linux turned on.
Your game runs on your computer
Flockbay is a desktop application for Windows, macOS and Linux, and it ships with Godot inside it. When you press play, the game starts on your machine, using your processor, your graphics card and your memory. There is no streaming, no remote rendering and no video feed coming back from a server.
This is the part people most often assume works the other way, because a lot of tools in this space do run the game elsewhere and send you a picture. That approach has real advantages, chiefly that it works on any machine. It also has a hard cost: your framerate is a shared resource, your input latency includes a round trip, and the size of world you can build is decided by whatever the provider is willing to pay for.
Running locally inverts all of that. A world with terrain, weather and a few hundred simulated characters is bounded by your hardware rather than by our infrastructure bill.
What does come over the network
Flockbay's AI, which works out the brief with you, builds the world and writes the GDScript for your game, runs over the network. So does asset generation, and so does world data such as terrain sources. These are the parts that genuinely need to be somewhere else, because they are large models and large datasets rather than something that fits on a laptop.
The consequence is direct and you should plan around it: you need an internet connection to build. There is no offline mode, no degraded mode and no cached fallback that lets you keep working on a train. If that is a blocker for you, it is better to know before you install anything.
The connection is not needed to play. Once the game exists, it runs on the bundled Godot, and an exported build of it sends nothing anywhere.
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Where your project lives
On your disk. What you build is a real Godot project in ordinary files, sitting in a directory on your own machine, not a record in a database you access through a browser.
This is the practical difference between a tool you use and a service you rent. Back it up how you like, copy it to another machine, keep it after you stop using the app. Godot is open source and free, so a project in Godot format does not stop being openable.
There is no cloud game building, no remote build queue and no server-side editor. The app on your machine is the whole editing surface.
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What this costs and what it buys
The cost is that it is a download and it needs a real computer. It will not run on a phone, a tablet, or a managed machine you cannot install software on. Browser tools win on that point and there is no way around it.
What it buys is headroom and ownership. The game can be as heavy as your machine allows, the framerate is real, and the project is a thing you hold rather than a thing you access.
Pricing follows the same logic. Flockbay is free, AI included: free hosted AI every day, or your Claude or ChatGPT plan, your own agent, or an API key. Flockbay builds from a library of ready-made objects, or with Godot's own shapes. There is no better engine to buy, because the engine is on your machine and it is the same one for everybody.
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Working across two machines
A common question, since the project is local: what happens if you build on a desktop and want to continue on a laptop.
The answer is that the project is a directory of ordinary files and moving it is your call. Copy it, sync it with whatever you already use, or keep it in version control. Install the app on both machines and sign in with the same account.
Flockbay does not move the files for you, it does not upload your game, and it keeps no copy of it. To work on a game with someone, or to keep it somewhere besides one disk, put it under version control from the app and publish it to your own GitHub repository. A collaborator you add clones it, and the two of you push and pull. A playtest link uploads a build for your testers, not the project.
That copy is for sharing, not a backup. Whatever you already use for the files you would hate to lose should cover your games too, and it is worth setting up before you have four months in it rather than after. Two machines, two installs, one account, and the files wherever you decide to keep them: that is the whole arrangement, and it has the advantage of being something you can reason about.
More on this: Do I need Godot installed to use Flockbay?
Questions
- Is my game rendered on a server?
- No. It runs locally on the copy of Godot bundled with the app, on Windows, macOS or Linux, using your own hardware.
- Do I need an internet connection?
- To build, yes. The chat, asset generation and world data all come over the network. To play what you built, no.
- Is there an offline mode?
- No. Building depends on services that do not fit on a laptop.
- Where is my project stored?
- In a directory on your own disk, as a real Godot project. Flockbay keeps no copy of it. A game you publish to GitHub goes to a repository you own.
- Can I edit my game from a browser or another machine?
- Not from a browser: your game lives on your disk and is edited in the app. You install the app on the machines you want to work on, and the project files are yours to move.