Overthinking killed the cat
People often see me as someone stubborn—someone who clings to her ideas no matter what. But the truth is, I am actually quite flexible.
Most of the time, people simply do not bring me ideas that make me stop and rethink my perspective. Instead, they repeat arguments I have already considered a million times. There is a quote that says, "Trust the overthinker when she says she loves you, because she has imagined a million ways it could go wrong and still chooses to love you." I think the same applies to ideas.
This is where the misunderstanding begins. People think I am rigid and stubborn, while I think they assume I am stupid—that I have never thought about the things they are telling me. They try to convince me with scenarios that would never serve me, or with ideas I threw into the trash long, long ago.
Don't get me wrong. I am not saying it is entirely their fault—it takes two to tango. Both sides need more openness. I have simply faced so much pushback throughout my life whenever I tried to defend my point of view that, sometimes, I honestly have no idea how to defend myself anymore.
Anyway.
What I actually wanted to talk about is how willing I am to change my way of thinking when I encounter a genuinely new perspective. I have just started preparing for my academic journey by reading research papers, and I can already feel my thoughts shifting. Not transforming into something completely different, but expanding as new ideas and new ways of looking at the world appear on the horizon.
To me, storytelling has always been incredibly complex. It means building a world, understanding how every choice a character makes ripples through that world, and observing the relationships between people. But now that complexity has expanded even further with the perspective of the audience.
As I have been planning my novel—and the game I hope to make from it—I have realised that storytelling is even more intricate than I thought. It is something that needs to be revisited over and over again.
Even if the core of the story never changes, I still have to think carefully about how to evoke the emotions I want the audience to experience.
Showing the love between two protagonists is relatively straightforward when I am writing a novel. I am the one in control. I decide what the reader sees and when they see it.
A choice-driven game is a completely different challenge.
First, there is visual storytelling. I no longer have to describe every glance between two characters with carefully chosen words because artists and animators can communicate those emotions visually. Yet I still have to imagine those glances, the body language, the timing, and every tiny nuance before anyone else can bring them to life.
And then come the choices.
How do I place genuine free will into the player's hands? How do I let people make their own decisions while still encouraging them to reflect on the consequences? Because that is the real goal. Not just to entertain people for a few hours, but to influence the way they think—perhaps only a little.
Suddenly, storytelling has gained another dimension, one that is forcing me to rethink many of my plans.
That is both exciting and exhausting.
Exciting because the more perspectives you can see, and the more deeply you understand something, the greater your work can become.
Exhausting because it opens yet another rabbit hole of overthinking and overanalysing—a place where burnout, perfectionism, and a lack of motivation quietly wait for you. Eventually, nothing feels good enough.
And when nothing feels good enough, nothing gets done.
But those are my demons to fight.
Somewhere between endless curiosity and endless overthinking lies balance. I am still desperately looking for it.
I have a feeling I will find it eventually.
After all, we are given challenges to overcome—not to overthink forever.