Hey VGA, love your work and all you've done for the community.

Boy, am I in a pickle and I need some legal help badly. Let me try to be as absolutely brief as possible. Please bear with me as there is a lot of moving parts.

I'm 36 and based out of New York. 5 years ago I ran a successful IndieGogo with a partner and got a little north of 200k to make a game. We proceeded to form an LLC as a 50/50 partnership. We worked on the game for about 3 years, and then released the game on Steam Early Access where it sold for another 2 years.

In an effort to minimize cost, my partner and I decided in verbal agreement that he would be part time on the game while I worked full time. I took about 100k of the money we made to pay myself a salary until the game was complete (I ended up paying myself about 20k/year to span it out as long as possible). Meanwhile, he supported himself via his job and took none of the money.

Fast forward to now. The game is not complete. We have about a year left, but we're out of money. As we put all the money we made back into development, my partner and I both recouped none of what we put in. My partner got angry at this, and started to blame me. It is now at the point where he wants the IP to himself so he can release the game in its current state (not finished) to try to take the rest of the money for himself. He is now saying if I don't sign the IP and the company over to him, he will sue me for embezzlement since he received none of the money we made and I got a lot of it. While it's technically true, we did this in mutual agreement for the betterment of the project. Now he's using that choice against me.

I've been working on this game 16 hours a day for the last 5 years. I'm tired. I'm broke. All I want is to release the game and move on with my life. But now I have no money and a lawsuit. Am I screwed?

Followup question: If this issue requires legal representation are you taking on new clients?

Thanks for your time.