The month of fall, refreshing and calm. The month begun with rain, easing the heat and finally confirming that summer had ended.

October was all about me chasing TwoStrauss’s tutorial again, learning Swift and playing lots (and lots) of games.

Lets start with Swift 

I always wanted to learn swift. The Apple ecosystem and its elegance have fascinated me for years. My first attempt was back in 2018 through a Udacity course, but I could never finish. I thought it was laziness, but looking back, I learned so many other things in that period including basics of design, data analysis, sql, python and R but never swift.

That early experience left me thinking Swift was hard, and that thought kept me intimidated for years. I tried learning again and again, but never made real progress.

Then recently, while building my portfolio in Astro (AI tools as Creative Partners) , I used Claude and Cursor extensively to learn along the way. That process changed my confidence completely and I realized I don’t need to memorize everything, I just need to know how to find solutions.

I even wrote a note about how AI has changed the way I learn and how it empowers rather than replaces. The same thing happened here.

Right now, I’m following TwoStrauss’s tutorial and using Claude.ai whenever I get stuck or need deeper explanations.

Play 🎮

Ever since I joined the game industry, I’ve started to appreciate gaming as culture and as design experience. This month, I wanted to see how console games approach design and how they balance usability with emotion.

I’ve been playing Ghost of Tsushima since September, and after a month, I finally finished the storyline (yes, the storyline, I know). The game was deeply emotional and it felt like watching a series that I was part of. The storytelling was compelling, immersive, and beautiful.

After that, I began exploring live ops in console games through FC 26, Forza Horizon 5, and another masterpiece, God of War.

Writing. 🖋️

I always wanted to write, and to tell stories better. I couldn’t find a natural flow. Whenever I did, I ended up disliking my own words. They felt forced, like cheap literature.

Recently, I learned about a principle many writers follow: write first, edit later. get the structure down, and refine after. That small shift helped a lot.

This is where Im using AI tools again, not to write for me, but to keep me consistent while editing as I tend to switch tone midway and the tools help me to keep the tone in check.

This very note was written in iA Writer (my favorite app — more on that later) and later edited using the help of AI to maintain tone and clarity.

Would that be called overreliance or vibe coding? I dont know. The goal is to use these tools to learn and practice, so eventually, I won’t need them.