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'Balloon Boy' spawns online game

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Richard Heene speaks with media in front of his home in Fort Collins, Colo., on Saturday, October 17, 2009. Heene held the press conference to ask media for questions to be written and placed in a card board box to be answered later on Saturday. Officials said on October 18, 2009 that criminal charges are expected to be filed in the Balloon Boy saga, where it was allegedly feared that Falcon Heene, age 5, had drifted off with a homemade balloon made by his dad Richard. UPI/Michael G. Seamans 
Published: Oct. 21, 2009 at 2:22 AM

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Falcon Heene, the Colorado "balloon boy," has gone viral with an online video game that begins in a balloon and ends in his parents' attic, a gamer said.

The 6-year-old's virtual image fights off falcons -- the bird kind -- and left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore, the New York Daily News reports.

"We saw the incident happening on TV last week and decided to make a game," said Jude Gomila of San Francisco, who helped create the game. "It took us about six hours and we launched it out to our friends on Twitter."

Falcon's parents told authorities last week he might have taken off in their homemade weather balloon, setting off a land and air search across two counties in Colorado. Falcon turned out never to have left the family's Fort Collins home and the parents face criminal charges.

The game is distributed by Heyzap, a new online gaming company. The balloon boy homepage is on Moore's Web site, with a headline: "How Many $$$ of Tax Payer Money Can You Waste?"

Another company, zazzle.com, has set up a Balloon Boy Store to peddle Falcon Heene merchandise like key rings.

Topics: Falcon Heene, Michael Moore
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