PETALING JAYA, October 18 — Twelve-year-old Muhammad Thaqif is not your average kid.  

While his friends enjoyed themselves after UPSR, Thaqif had been busy developing a first-person shooting game at internet cafe that past year that involves killing zombies and spiders, hoping to sell it for RM1 to ease his mother’s burden.

But he said last Tuesday that the Pusat Internet 1 Malaysia deleted his game folders as they thought it was a virus.

"Assalamualaikum and hello everyone, to those who asked me when my game was going to be finished, I have some bad news. The CC (cyber café) owner deleted my application and its data.

"I visited the CC earlier to continue developing the game, but they told me it was deleted. I’ve spent close to a year on this game, and the product was deleted. The game was 75 per cent completed,” he posted to a gaming group called PC Gaming Community Malaysia.

Screenshots of his post went viral and eventually drew the attention of Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman, who retweeted a post of Thaqif’s dilemma yesterday.

"Brilliant! We should have more youngsters like him. Please arrange a meeting with this hero @Amshar_Aziz,” the minister tweeted.

That was not the only swing of fortune Thaqif had coming his way as the café managed to recover his files.

Social media news site Malay Reporter reported that Thaqif was not attending school due to some problems, while his family was also forced to move from Bangi to Jengka due to his health issue.

It was reported that the 12-year-old was a very hardworking kid, helping his mother with her online business besides creating the game.

A screen capture showing Muhammad Thaqif"s post on Facebook highlighting his plight. – Screen capture via Twitter/Qhairilfaizie