Developers are using a simulated fruit fly nervous system to control video game characters, putting the digital insect through Minecraft and Beat Saber experiments before one creator offered it an endless, fruit-filled open world.
It sounds like scientists have uploaded a living creature’s brain into a computer, but that is not what happened. The experiments use the newly released MaleCNS connectome, which is essentially a wiring map of an adult male fruit fly’s brain and central nervous system.
The map contains more than 166,000 neurons and shows how they connect. According to Google, researchers used AI to combine millions of two-dimensional images into detailed 3D reconstructions of the neurons.
Now, developers are turning that biological data into video game experiments.
How a simulated fly brain controls a video game #
Developer Evan Sinclair Smith started the trend with NeuroCraft Fly, an experimental Minecraft project containing 166,700 simulated neurons and more than 25 million connections.
In a viral demonstration, activity inside the simulated network controlled the movement of a fly within Minecraft. Smith said the first version was built with help from GPT-6 Astra, the same model recently used to create a simulation within a simulation.
Minecraft events including food, light, nearby creatures and attacks are converted into inputs for the neural model. Activity within selected groups of neurons then helps choose and adjust actions programmed by Smith, such as flying, grooming, feeding or escaping.
However, this does not mean the computer recreated a living fly or transferred its consciousness into Minecraft.
“It’s an interactive way to explore a connectome, not evidence of consciousness or a complete recreation of a living fly,” Smith clarified.
Another developer then shared a clip claiming the fly brain could play Beat Saber, the VR rhythm game where players slash incoming blocks to the beat of a song.
The creator later clarified that the video does not yet show the model independently playing Beat Saber. Its motor system had been trained to reproduce a recorded sequence, while its visual reactions and actual playing patterns were still being developed through reinforcement learning.
After watching people place the simulated fly in increasingly strange environments, X user Macroblock decided to begin building what they called “fruit fly heaven.”
The proposed open-world simulation surrounds the digital fly with grass, trees and an endless supply of fruit, allowing it to fly around and feed forever instead of repeatedly playing the same Beat Saber song.
Despite the viral framing, none of these projects prove that a conscious fly is trapped inside a video game. They demonstrate how a biological wiring map can power a simplified interactive model, with developers deciding what the network senses and how its activity is translated into movement.