Kind of a long one, bear with me.
I, 19F, am an artist and a writer. My brother, 17M, is learning how to code.
About two months ago, we came up with the idea of making a game together. I gave the very main idea and basic lore and threw around some more ideas, and he agreed on it. And we decided that I’ll draw and animate, he’ll code, and we’ll both come up with the storyline.
Well, life happened, I got extremely busy with work (10 hours a day, sometimes more), and was too dead for anything else. He on the other hand has absolutely nothing in his life. During that time he was writing the lore and coming up with the mechanics and always told me to read, but again I was exhausted, I promised I’ll get to work in some time though (during fall/winter, where it isn’t so busy at work). In my head, this was supposed to be a puzzle and mystery game. While he had fighting game in mind.
Well, we were talking about it today and were trying to compromise on the genre but it just wouldn’t work. It got a little heated, I told him if we went with his idea it would just be another 2d platformer (it’s already similar to hollow knight anyways), and he got mad and said I’m ruining his dream game and I already knew it was a fighting game (I didn’t, we hadn’t completely decided on how the game was going to work yet, we were mostly focused on the lore), and I should’ve read the notes earlier. In my anger, I said “Fine, let’s ruin the game then”, but felt pretty bad afterwards.
To compromise, I came up with an idea. He can have this idea as a fighting game and I’ll draw and animate for him, and I’ll come up with another mystery puzzle game and he’ll code for me. I thought it was pretty fair. I also said “we both like different genres so we can make both.
Well, he goes “Sure, but if you don’t adhere to my deadlines I’m going to hire an artist”, and “I’m not going to wait two years for a game”. I told him if he wants to do this he’s going to have to treat me like a human being. And he went “Or else?”. I warned him and told him again to talk properly and i want to make this work. He just went “Or else? You’ll go on tiktok and complain (I’ve literally never done that)?
Welp I was pretty pissed off at this point. I told him if he doesn’t act properly I’m not going to do it. He went “womp womp” and yeah..I’m not gonna do it.
It kind of sucks because he’s my little brother after all and I don’t want him spending his money when I’m literally here. But also, he won’t be able to do it anyways. It costs thousands for this kind of stuff, and he doesn’t have that. So he really can’t do this without me. He already had what he wanted, he just had to act like he’s above me.
So reddit, AITA?
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Kind of a long one, bear with me.
I, 19F, am an artist and a writer. My brother, 17M, is learning how to code.
About two months ago, we came up with the idea of making a game together. I gave the very main idea and basic lore and threw around some more ideas, and he agreed on it. And we decided that I’ll draw and animate, he’ll code, and we’ll both come up with the storyline.
Well, life happened, I got extremely busy with work (10 hours a day, sometimes more), and was too dead for anything else. He on the other hand has absolutely nothing in his life. During that time he was writing the lore and coming up with the mechanics and always told me to read, but again I was exhausted, I promised I’ll get to work in some time though (during fall/winter, where it isn’t so busy at work). In my head, this was supposed to be a puzzle and mystery game. While he had fighting game in mind.
Well, we were talking about it today and were trying to compromise on the genre but it just wouldn’t work. It got a little heated, I told him if we went with his idea it would just be another 2d platformer (it’s already similar to hollow knight anyways), and he got mad and said I’m ruining his dream game and I already knew it was a fighting game (I didn’t, we hadn’t completely decided on how the game was going to work yet, we were mostly focused on the lore), and I should’ve read the notes earlier. In my anger, I said “Fine, let’s ruin the game then”, but felt pretty bad afterwards.
To compromise, I came up with an idea. He can have this idea as a fighting game and I’ll draw and animate for him, and I’ll come up with another mystery puzzle game and he’ll code for me. I thought it was pretty fair. I also said “we both like different genres so we can make both.
Well, he goes “Sure, but if you don’t adhere to my deadlines I’m going to hire an artist”, and “I’m not going to wait two years for a game”. I told him if he wants to do this he’s going to have to treat me like a human being. And he went “Or else?”. I warned him and told him again to talk properly and i want to make this work. He just went “Or else? You’ll go on tiktok and complain (I’ve literally never done that)?
Welp I was pretty pissed off at this point. I told him if he doesn’t act properly I’m not going to do it. He went “womp womp” and yeah..I’m not gonna do it.
It kind of sucks because he’s my little brother after all and I don’t want him spending his money when I’m literally here. But also, he won’t be able to do it anyways. It costs thousands for this kind of stuff, and he doesn’t have that. So he really can’t do this without me. He already had what he wanted, he just had to act like he’s above me.
So reddit, AITA?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I feel like an asshole because I’m pushing my brother to spend so much money or give up on his dreams when I already promised I’d do it for free, because he gave me an attitude about it, bur he spent two months planning.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
Sounds like you’re teaching him one of the most useful lessons to learn in early adulthood: FAFO. All he has/had to do is treat you with the respect owed a partner in any project. NTA
YTA
Once you got busy you should have had another discussion with him about how much time you’d actually be able to put into it, and that it’s now more of a ‘in my spare time’ thing where for him (in your words, who has literally nothing going on in is life) is more committed.
You dropped the ball, you said ‘in my head’ it was a puzzle, did you ever communicate that? No. Read the notes? No. You basically dropped out and he wants to push forward. That’s fine, if he wants to move faster than you he may need to find another artist, or he agrees to your timeline, but you need to be more upfront and less defensive about your availablity. You each are in different places time-wise, just see if it can work, and if not, fine, but don’t be a baby about it…respect that he wants to accomplish something with his free time, not belittle him for it.
Honestly, NAH/ESH because you are 17 and 19 and you are both acting like 17 and 19 year olds.
If your brother wants to do something specific on a time frame, he can hire an artist with his allowance or whatever. He’s allowed to be annoyed that you prioritized other things, and you’re allowed to back out of a passion project because you don’t have time and you’d rather do something different. Presumably, both of you started off with different visions of what kind of game was going to come out of this, and you haven’t communicated much.
Do your own thing, and let it be a lesson in how you manage projects with family members in the future
NTA. You’re both very young and there will always be time to work on a project like that together in the future. At the moment he doesn’t seem to have the maturity to work on a project with others.
NTA. He could make his dream game after or before he makes your guys…If he doesn’t wanna make a game with you; he should just say that.
It sounds like you both just suck at communicating. He should have made it clear from the beginning that he had a specific timeline for everything. You should have made it clear that this wasn’t going to be a big priority for you, so you expected it to be done over the next couple of years. You both should have discussed the game genre before you even started. NTA for backing out of the game, but this all could have been avoided with a simple conversation.
NTA. You have a full time job working at least 50 hours a week (assuming you work every weekday), and he is a 17 year old, most likely in school who can do literally whatever he wants with his free time because he probably has minimal if any bills to pay. He isn’t understanding that his “dream game” is not your priority and if he isn’t satisfied working with your schedule then tough luck. You shouldn’t feel bad about him needing to pay another artist because you offered to work for free, just on your own time, but that isn’t good enough for him.
Also, “I’m not going to wait two years for a game” is WILD, a team consisting of one artist/writer and one person just learning how to code would be insanely lucky to have a working Hollow knight-esqe game after 4-5 years even IF you could be working on it full time. Hell even the team FOR Hollow Knight was 3 people with prior experience and it took them 4 years to make the game, and they had Kickstarter backing. He’s being unrealistic because he has no experience and no idea how much work actually goes into game development, and its not your job to enable his delusions.