fruit-fly-plays-mc

🪰 Drosophila — Real Fruit Fly Brain in Minecraft

An advanced neurobiological simulation that integrates the real MaleCNS v1.0 biological fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) connectome—electron-microscopy mapped neuron-by-neuron by the Janelia Research Campus, University of Cambridge, MRC LMB, and Google Research consortium, containing 13,000+ neurons and 5,000,000+ synapses—directly into Minecraft.

The simulation runs a Leaky Integrate-and-Fire (LIF) biophysical neural model. It commands a physical body (Bee) within Minecraft; seeing through 1,536-ommatidia compound eyes, smelling airborne odor molecules, hearing acoustic shocks and wind via Johnston's organ, and experiencing pain, taste, and hunger.

🌟 Vision and Philosophy

When examining existing connectome experiments and alternative projects, two common approaches emerge:

1. Extreme Pruning and Dynamic Loss: Some projects prune the ~1 GB biological dataset down to 20–22 MB. We believe a drastically amputated network can never exhibit genuine fruit fly neurodynamics or organic decision-making. Our goal is to preserve the full biological connectome weights without structural compromise.
2. Artificial Task Forcing (Crypto Trading / Flying Airplanes): Many try to force connectome models to fly airplanes or trade cryptocurrency using external reinforcement learning (RL). That is not biological intelligence—it is standard machine learning. Any generic artificial neural network can be trained on crypto. Forcing a fruit fly through artificial rewards and dopamine overrides destroys its biological authenticity.

🎯 Core Principle

Our purpose is not to train the fly on artificial tasks. We provide authentic biological sensory inputs (1,536 compound eye raytracing, olfactory gradient diffusion, air currents, Johnston's organ acoustic shocks, nociception, and hunger) and observe how an authentic 13,000-neuron connectome survives, navigates, and reacts organically in a Minecraft ecosystem without artificial interference.

🔧 Server Plugin Configuration (config.yml)

The plugin creates plugins/FruitFly/config.yml on first launch:

# Language selection ("en" for English, "tr" for Turkish, or custom in languages/)
language: "en"

# Python Brain WebSocket Server (listens on 0.0.0.0)
brain:
  port: 8765                  # WebSocket listening port
  auth-token: "drosophila_secret_token_123"  # Shared security password / token
  smart-sleep:
    enabled: true             # Skips heavy sensory raytracing when no players are nearby (0% CPU)
    player-distance: 48.0     # Player proximity threshold in blocks

# Entity Settings
bee:
  auto-spawn: true            # Spawns automatically on server start and on death
  display-name: ""            # Custom display name (leave empty for language default)
  invulnerable: false         # God mode toggle
  speed-multiplier: 1.0       # Flight speed multiplier
  odor-range: 16.0            # Olfactory perception radius in blocks

# Vision System
vision:
  max-ray-range: 16.0         # 1,536-ray compound eye raytracing range in blocks

🎮 In-Game Commands

All commands require OP permission (drosophila.admin).
Command Alias: /fruitfly or /fluitfly

Purple Droplets / Tears (FALLING_OBSIDIAN_TEAR):

Biological Source: The PPL1 dopaminergic neuron cluster in the Drosophila brain (punishment, pain, danger, negative reinforcement). What Does It Mean?: It indicates that the fly is unhappy, hungry, trapped, or in pain. When the fly goes hungry (foodLevel < 5.0), crashes into a wall, comes into contact with water and risks drowning, or is left in the dark, PPL1 neurons are stimulated (sad mode), and purple droplets of sorrow fall from the fly's eyes.

Red Hearts (HEART):

Biological Source: The PAM dopaminergic neuron cluster in the Drosophila brain (sugar reward, satiety, positive reinforcement). What Does It Mean?: When the fly eats an apple on the ground, tastes sugar, or becomes fully satiated, PAM neurons fire (happy and eating mode), and hearts appear.

Black Ink / Escape Smoke (SQUID_INK):

Biological Source: Drosophila's famous Giant Neuron (Giant Fiber / DNp01). What Does It Mean?: When a zombie, creeper, or player suddenly approaches the fly rapidly (visual approach/looming) or when it takes a hit, the fly performs a sudden escape jump (saccade jump) and leaves behind black escape smoke (scared mode).

Green Sparks (HAPPY_VILLAGER):

Appears the moment the fly is released from the bottle or while it is resting gently on a tree leaf.

Red Line / Damage (DAMAGE_INDICATOR):

Indicates that the fly is taking physical damage.

⚠️ Important note

Since it runs an actual AI model, you need Python 3.10+ and must download the model separately: https://github.com/DeveloperKubilay/fruit-fly-plays-mc/releases/tag/1.0.0

It does not need to be run on the same machine as the server; it operates using WebSockets.