THATDAMN FLY
One fly. Zero patience. A game of domestic revenge - against a fly with a real brain.
It sees the object coming down and flees - because the escape is decided by a circuit of 816 neurons copied from the brain of a real fruit fly. Swat where it WILL be, not where it is.
Point your camera at the code or open thatdamnfly.com in Safari/Chrome.
Aponta a câmara ao código ou abre thatdamnfly.com no Safari/Chrome.
The game
Sixty seconds, one kitchen, one fly that won't leave you alone. Every catch adds time - and every miss adds fury.
A real brain
The escape isn't scripted: it's a neural circuit derived from a real connectome. The brain icon lights up the moment it saw you.
The Day: seven scenes
Kitchen, café terrace, beach, picnic, backyard, living room and bathroom. Three requests each; one star opens the next; the boss fly waits at the end.
The objects, in your hand
Cloth, pan, fridge, flip-flop, cooler, sofa… Drag them from the scene into a first-person hand and throw. The big ones only when fury rises.
Fury and combos
Missing hurts. Fury unlocks bigger objects; consecutive catches make combos and add time. At a ×3 combo you earn bait.
Fly of the day
The same fly for everyone, every day. Records, replay of your best catch, a card to share - and a fly collection with titles.
Bonus: the face
Earn a star and you get 20 s to keep the flies off someone's face - Zé, Mrs. Amélia, Tiago, Grandpa Anselmo or Chef Rui. Every miss lands on their face: they react, turn red and blow up.
How to play
No tutorial needed - but this helps.
Tap near the fly. It sees the object coming and flees - so swat where it will be. estar.
To switch objects, drag one from the scene to your hand, down here. A tap is always an attack.
Fury rises with every miss: at 25 the medium objects open, at 60 the giants (press, aim, release).
Complete the requests, earn stars, open the next scene - every new star unlocks the face bonus. In the bathroom, catch the boss and close the day.
The science
The fly in the game doesn't follow a script. Every time an object approaches, a neural model - built from a real brain - decides whether to flee, and where.
Where the brain comes from
From MaleCNS v1.0 (FlyEM / HHMI Janelia): the connectome - the map of every neuron and its synapses - of the central nervous system of a male fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. (FlyEM / HHMI Janelia): o conectoma - o mapa de todos os neurónios e das suas sinapses - do sistema nervoso central de uma mosca-da-fruta macho (Drosophila melanogaster), publicado sob licença CC BY 4.0.
What we extracted
A circuit of 816 neurons and 38,521 connections around the visual escape pathways: the visual projection neurons that respond to objects growing in the field of view ("looming") and the descending neurons that command the escape - including the famous Giant Fiber. e 38 521 ligações em torno das vias visuais de fuga: os neurónios de projeção visual que respondem a objetos a crescer no campo de visão («looming») e os neurónios descendentes que comandam a fuga - incluindo a famosa Giant Fiber.
How it runs on your phone
A sensory encoder turns every approaching object into looming signals per sector of the visual field. FlyCore, a spiking-neuron simulator written in C++, advances the circuit in 10 ms steps, in real time. The activity of the left and right descending neurons moves a virtual body: backwards and away from the stimulus. The fly never receives the position of your finger, the chosen object or the fury - only what it "sees"., um simulador de neurónios com disparo (spiking) escrito em C++, avança o circuito em passos de 10 ms, em tempo real. A atividade dos neurónios descendentes, esquerda e direita, move um corpo virtual: para trás e para o lado oposto ao estímulo. A mosca não recebe a posição do dedo, o objeto escolhido nem a fúria - só o que «vê».
In the game, the brain icon lights up when the model's escape neurons fire - the exact moment the fly "saw you". The round sheet tells you in how many attacks it saw you, and how fast.What it is not
It is not a complete brain, not a living animal, it feels no pain and does not learn between rounds. The dynamic parameters (thresholds, time constants, the body) were chosen by us. The data authors do not sponsor and have not validated this game.
We tested whether the circuit really decides
Pre-registered protocol, 12,000 trials, five conditions, run on the same simulator the game uses.
| Intact circuit | 91 % |
| Visual → descending connections cut | 36 % |
| Connection weights shuffled | no directed response |
| Motor output disabled | wandering only |
Every pre-registered criterion passed. The remaining 36% is the fly's normal wandering, not an escape.
Science page, with sources · neural package (public, no DRM)
How it was made
A project by Miguel Prego, made with two AI assistants.
Miguel Prego - direction
Direction, decisions and acceptance of every version.
GPT‑6 Astra - structure and science
The functional, technical and design structure of the project, and the scientific analysis.
Claude Opus 5 - implementation
Extracting the circuit, the FlyCore simulator, the sensory encoder and the body, the Unity game, the script-generated art and sound, this site.
Open source. The code is under the MIT licence and the content (art, sounds, music, texts) under CC BY 4.0: github.com/T-Miguel/ThatDamnFly. The name and logo identify the official game. O código está sob licença MIT e os conteúdos (arte, sons, música, textos) sob CC BY 4.0: github.com/T-Miguel/ThatDamnFly. O nome e o logótipo identificam o jogo oficial.