Someone wired up a digital fly's brain in a Pi 5 to play Pokémon, and you can help it progress

Published Sep 28, 2026, 1:29 AM EDT Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Sign in to your XDA account Summary A complete fruit-fly brain sim runs on a Pi 5 to play Pokémon live on Twitch. Viewers can zap reward/punishment neurons to nudge behavior; changes last 10 minutes. Uses FlyWire's 139,255 neurons on a Pi; decodes game memory to buttons, with no retinotopy. Earlier this month, Google and the Janelia Research Campus released the blueprints to a fruit fly's brain. Researchers probably expected people to study the brain, learn about how the neurons worked, and further their interest in neuroscience, but the internet instead played Bad Apple on its neurons and stuffed several of them into The Amazing Digital Circus. You know, the things the internet tends to do with significant scientific findings. Well, one person has taken that fruit fly and forced it to play Pokémon for the delight of Twitch. And if you want, you can hop in and help the fly make its journey toward beating the Elite Four. You can help a fruit fly achieve its goal of becoming a Pokémon master It's up to you to decide if the project is either really cool or a manmade horror Over on the Raspberry Pi subreddit, user Leetzerzz on Twitch posted a description of how their stream worked. If it's currently live, you can watch the fruit fly move around in the video above and see everything fire off. Otherwise, here's how Leetzerzz puts it: All 139,255 neurons of the FlyWire FAFB v783 reconstruction — a complete adult female Drosophila brain, though not the ventral nerve cord —simulated on a Pi 5 alongside mGBA, using connections of five or more synapses. The spatial layout of walls, doors and people is read out of the game's memory and fed to the looming-detector populations (LPLC1, LC10, LPLC4) as left/right drive. It isn't doing image processing — there's no retinotopy, which is the honest limitation. Descending neuron activity decodes into button presses. To help it along, you can pop into the Twitch stream and nudge it by giving it directions. If it's doing well, you can stimulate its reward neurons, and it'll do that thing more often. If it does poorly, you can fire off the punishment neurons to make it feel bad. Each neuron zap will actually modify the neural pathways, and the effects remain for 10 minutes. Just a little bit horrifying, I'd say. If this sounds interesting, be sure to visit Leetzerzz's Twitch stream and give the fly a nudge in the right direction.