GitGud.WTF
There's a fruit fly on your desktop. Its brain is a real(ish) spiking neural network built from actual Drosophila neurons. It has one job: not getting smacked by you.
Catch it before the timer runs out, or it bluescreens your PC. No pressure.
About 7 MB to download, then your CPU does the thinking.
- Move to aim, click to swat. Go slow. It sees you coming.
- Tap to swat. Fat fingers welcome.
- Strike while it's rubbing its hands (grooming = distracted).
- 🍺 Spill beer to bait it (or press B). Drunk flies are dumb flies.
- Miss, and it's jumpy for a few seconds. Patience, grasshopper.
Tip: Hold the swatter by the handle. The long bit.
CONTAINMENT INCIDENT. Twelve genetically modified flies escaped from a lab USB stick into your PC. Swat them in order. Each one is a real Drosophila mutant with a real defect, and that defect is your way in.
Genotype:
Lab notes (real science, we checked):
Why this one is different:
Best times:
CERTIFIED FLY MURDERER
| Time | |
|---|---|
| Misses | |
| Weapon | |
| Personal best | |
| Flies murdered (you) |
WTF is this fly?
It's a Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly. Same species as the internet's favourite brain: mapped neuron by neuron (139,255 of them, thanks FlyWire), uploaded into computers, and made to walk, groom, eat, play chess and, apparently, DOOM.
Ours is the budget edition: 148 spiking neurons and ~470 synapses running at 1 kHz in your browser. That's about 0.1% of a fly. Your laptop is welcome. The wiring is hand-tuned, but every neuron is a real fly cell type, and the body only does what the neurons tell it to:
- LC4 & LPLC2: looming detectors. They notice your swatter getting bigger. Fast.
- Giant Fiber (DNp01): the "oh shit" neuron. One spike → jump muscle → gone.
- DNp11: the calmer, planned takeoff. Smug.
- MDN: moonwalker neurons. That's the real name. They make it walk backwards.
- P9 & DNa02: walk and steer. EPG: the fly's built-in compass.
- Gr64f → Fdg: tastes sugar, starts drinking. Beer counts.
- Octopamine: fly adrenaline. Miss, and it's jumpy for a few seconds.
Want the real thing? Tick FULL BRAIN in fly.exe. Then the decision to escape comes from the actual FlyWire wiring diagram: all 139,255 neurons and 2.7 million connections, simulated in your browser with the same neuron model scientists used to make a virtual fly taste sugar (Shiu et al., Nature 2024). Its real descending neurons also get a say in turning away, backing up and drinking. Nobody wrote "jump when the swatter comes". The wiring just does it. The 148 neurons above still handle walking, grooming and the compass.
Fun fact: Drosophila alcohol genes are genuinely named cheapdate, hangover, barfly, tipsy and happyhour. Scientists are just like us.
Pro tips: approach slowly. Strike when it grooms. Spill beer and wait until it's drunk. Don't spam: it only makes it jumpier. Git gud.
The FULL BRAIN
Fly brain wiring: the FlyWire Consortium (Princeton University with labs and citizen scientists around the world), public release v783. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
What we changed: we kept the 2.7 million pairs of neurons joined by at least 5 synapses, gave each neuron one sign from its predicted transmitter (GABA and glutamate inhibit, the rest excite), and packed it into a 7 MB file for your browser. That file, flywire783.bin, is under the same licence: share and adapt it, credit FlyWire, no commercial use. Details in DATA_LICENSE.md.
Papers behind it:
- Dorkenwald et al. (2024). Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain. Nature 634, 124–138.
- Schlegel et al. (2024). Whole-brain annotation and multi-connectome cell typing of Drosophila. Nature 634, 139–152.
- Matsliah et al. (2024). Neuronal parts list and wiring diagram for a visual system. Nature 634, 166–180.
- Zheng et al. (2018). A complete electron microscopy volume of the brain of adult Drosophila melanogaster. Cell 174, 730–743.
- Eckstein et al. (2024). Neurotransmitter classification from electron microscopy images at synaptic sites in Drosophila melanogaster. Cell 187, 2574–2594.
- Shiu et al. (2024). A Drosophila computational brain model reveals sensorimotor processing. Nature 634, 210–219. The neuron model and its constants are theirs (code under the MIT licence).
None of these people endorse this game. They mapped a brain for science. We hit it with a racket.
Everything else
- Bluescreen font: VT323 (SIL Open Font License).
- QR codes: qrcode-generator by Kazuhiko Arase (MIT).
- The 148-neuron fly is hand-wired, inspired by published fly research.
The full brain is free for everyone. Buying the dev a beer is optional and unlocks nothing. The tip jar itself is locked, though: it only opens once you beat THE UPLOAD with chopsticks.
GitGud.WTF is a parody and isn't affiliated with Microsoft, Vipps MobilePay, FlyWire or any fly.
Spander en øl? 🍺
Your copy of Tip Jar is not activated. Activation key: one THE UPLOAD, caught with chopsticks. Keys obtained with a racket are pirated and will be laughed at.
Hei, it's the dev. If the fly gave you a laugh (or made you swear), you can buy me a beer. In practice it pays the domain and the server the fly lives on. It unlocks nothing, and the game stays free either way.
Tips are coming soon. The dev forgot to add their own details. Typical.
- Copy the number.
- In Vipps, send to it. Any amount.
- Put 🪰 in the message if you like, so the dev knows the fly sent you.
MobilePay in Denmark or Finland, or Vipps in Sweden? Send to the same number. Your app adds a small fee.
No Vipps?
Copy the number, say you already did, or say no thanks, and nobody here asks again.
None of these tell the game anything, so "I already did" works on your word. . That helps too.
You can't shut down. The fly lives here now.
Booting brain…