Science Quote by Will Wright

“I typically go overboard when I research new projects” reads like a polite confession that doubles as a mission statement. The phrase “typically” matters: this isn’t a one-off bout of enthusiasm, it’s a patterned way of working. And “go overboard” is doing quiet rhetorical work. It’s self-deprecating enough to sound approachable, but it also signals an unapologetic excess: the refusal to stop at “good enough” when the stakes are understanding a system.

Coming from Will Wright, the subtext is especially pointed because his career has been defined by building worlds that behave, not just worlds that look right. Research, for him, isn’t decorative homework to justify a premise; it’s the engine that makes a simulation feel uncannily alive. “Overboard” implies immersion past the normal boundaries of a job description: reading outside one’s lane, chasing edge cases, stress-testing assumptions, getting seduced by the weird exceptions that later become the most memorable mechanics.

There’s also an implicit critique of how projects are usually developed: under time pressure, optimized for deadlines, scrubbed of complexity. Wright frames his own excess as a kind of productive deviance. He’s admitting that curiosity can be inefficient, even socially suspect, yet he’s also arguing that this inefficiency is exactly where originality comes from. The line lands because it’s humble on the surface and quietly radical underneath: the best work often starts when you refuse to stop researching at the point where other people would sensibly move on.