Title: "I, Omniknight"
Release Date: 28 December 2014
Guide Content:
Gameplay and in-depth story for the character Omniknight in the game Dota 2.
Reception: Overwhelmingly positive

Guide creation:
My first guide that started my interest in creating Steam guides. In Dota 2 I only played as the Omniknight. My goal was to master that character and after hundreds of games and 800 hours, I eventually was ranked as one of the top 25 most experienced Omniknight players worldwide. A feat I was (and still am) proud of.

When I decided to stop playing Dota 2, I didn't want to leave this character without closure. I wanted to leave the stage with a big and positive goodbye. What followed was a decision to create my first Steam guide dedicated to Omniknight. In the guide I talked about everything I learned, starting with his abilities and ending with my own invented story for him. To give some spice to the text, I wrote it from Omniknight's point of view, trying to roleplay him as good as possible.

Final comment:
In Steam, guides for Dota 2 are like a drop in the ocean. It's not possible to find my guide by accident, but it did rise to the first page of all Omniknight guides and it is in the first 10 pages of TOP RATED ALL THE TIME, which is more than enough. And while I said goodbye to Omniknight and Dota 2, I welcomed my new interest - creating Steam guides.

Title: The Reaver Movement
Release Date: 09 January 2015
Guide Content:
Background story for the Reaver faction in the game Fallout Tactics.
Reception: Mostly positive

Guide creation:
My second Steam guide is actually my work I did not so long ago for a different website (see details in the "Word from Author" section of the guide). Everything you see in this guide was drawn by me, except the pictures of the soldiers in the header. It is still my most worked on, original and quality project to date. After my new gained interest in creating Steam guides, I first wanted to add this work to Steam since I knew it would be appropriate for the Steam guides section and I knew that players would like it.

It's the only guide for which I have expenses ($100 for renting the drawing equipment). The project was done in five stages: Collecting the canon data and forming my fan-made backstory for an existing Fallout faction; Writing the text in a way a Fallout intro scene would sound like; Drawing the frame and parchment; Drawing a detailed full body Reaver with a spear; Drawing the event pictures to accompany the story - initially there were more pictures, but due to time and expenses I had to reduce the amount of pictures (the draft pictures can be seen below).

Final comment:
In the end I myself was surprised how good it came out. This guide is one of the top 3 in the Fallout Tactics Steam guides section (one of them being my other Fallout Tactics guide). Even though this work didn't get the exposure and views I wanted, I was very satisfied with the results and with the knowledge that I'm capable of doing such artwork.

Title: Rurik and the Kievan Rus
Release Date: 17 January 2015
Guide Content:
How to create an Empire as the character Rurik in the game Crusader Kings II.
Reception: Very positive

Guide creation:
My third guide is for my most favorite game - Crusader Kings II. It was a logical decision since I have spent dozen of hours playing as Rurik in that game. In CKII you can decide what your goal is: survive until the end of the game; rule over the world; have the most riches; or as a lowly count try to become a king; etc. My goal was to create an Empire as the character Rurik. I experimented like a madman until I managed to unlock the right path.

At first I edited it as a normal guide in text form, but, as usual for such walkthroughs, it became a wall of text and, without visual aid, quite boring. After adding the pictures to the guide, it still wasn't quite right, so I decided to make the guide in the form of a parchment like in my previous (second) guide "The Reaver Movement".

In all my guides I try to have an eye catching header. I wanted to use an epic header for my Rurik walkthrough and after a long search I found the picture of the "Millennium of Russia" monument. Among other famous characters on that monument, Rurik is at the forefront in a striking pose.

My most favorite part in the walkthrough is when I explain how to conquer the Russian tribes without war. This feat alone makes this guide worth reading since I found out that most players chose to do it through war (especially since from the beginning Rurik has a big army). Why waste years and soldiers in war when you can peacefully unite all within a month if the criteria is met?

Unfortunately my Rurik walkthrough is outdated by now, following it might not bring the same results as at the time. But this walkthrough can also be observed as an AAR (after action report), so I decided not to update it.

Final comment:
The most funny part of this guide are the comments. Some people gave a negative response to this guide (by now they deleted it, but you can still see the logical response other players gave to those negative comments). One complained that this is not historically accurate, another protested that the Ukraine coat-of-arms symbol has nothing to do with Rurik, some wondered why Kiev is the capital of the Russian Empire. I guessed that such comments would appear, that is why I added some words in my "Word from Author" section, but seems not only did they not play the game, they also haven't read this guide. I'm sure this guide has the most down votes of all my guides.

With almost 100 guides in the CKII Steam guides section, this guide is ranked as one of the top 10 best guides, for which I'm proud and happy.

Title: Wesker, villain or hero?
Release Date: 20 January 2015
Guide Content:
Background story for the character Albert Wesker in the game Resident Evil.
Reception: Mixed

Guide creation:
My fourth and my most disliked guide. I wanted to create a guide for Resident Evil since I loved the original first game, but unfortunately I had no idea what kind of guide should I make. I pre-ordered it, because the pre-order promised additional content such as a digital handbook for the game. The initial idea was to wait for the game's release, check out this handbook and make some kind of guide from it.

Unfortunately that handbook didn't give me any idea for a guide creation, so I took the lazy route - I found a fan-made story and copied it. I didn't copy it entirely, I edited the text to make it short and more coherent, and added my pictures. But no matter how much I changed the original text or added pictures, the fact remains that it was a copy-paste work.

Final comment:
Although I spend a lot of time editing the text and pictures, the hardest part in creating this guide was the decision to include the information that this story was not created by me. I decided to
mention it and, despite the immediate negative reaction, I'm glad I did it. Maybe after some time passes and I create more guides, I will eventually delete this one, because every time I see this guide, I feel ashamed. I guess back then I was so proud of my previous three guides that I thought that this lazy work might fly ... well, lesson learned. Don't force yourself creating a guide when you have no solid idea, don't copy-paste others work and don't be lazy!

Title: How to play the Sniper
Release Date: 26 January 2015
Guide Content:
Advanced gameplay for the Sniper character in the game Team Fortress 2.
Reception: Mostly positive

Guide creation:
In my fifth guide I'm credited as a contributor since I only helped with the translation and picture editing. A friend and fellow guide creator, Mr.Gaunt, suggested to collaborate with him on creating a Team Fortress 2 guide. Though I had the desire to experience my first guide collaboration, I declined since I never played Team Fortress 2 and had no desire playing it, but he then informed that he already created a guide in Russian and just needs help with the English translation.

After this clarification I thought this will be a perfect opportunity in experiencing my first guide collaboration since at the time I suffered "writers block" and needed to shake off the embarrassment of my previous guide for Resident Evil. The only condition I had was to add my own edited pictures (or at least change a bit the existing one), but Mr.Gaunt explained that that was one of the reasons he wanted to collaborate with me. I had a good laugh.

When I finished the guide, Mr.Gaunt liked the pictures so much that he used some of them in his original Russian guide.

Final comment:
Although it's a quality guide and it received very positives reviews, by now it's drowned in the sea of other TF2 guides. It's impossible to find this guide by accident, which is kind of sad. I also noticed a funny misunderstanding by the TF2 community (not as funny though as the misunderstanding for my other guide for Crusader Kings II). This guide is for the Sniper character, who is from Australia, but some misunderstood that the British flag on the guide's profile means that the Sniper is from UK. I know it was my mistake since I should've mentioned in the guide's title that it's a English translation, but I still had another good laugh about this.

Title: Reynauld the Darkest Crusader
Release Date: 07 February 2015
Guide Content: A short comic book story for the game Darkest Dungeon.
Reception: Overwhelmingly positive

Guide creation:
My sixth and most popular guide is not even a guide but a comic book story. After I discovered all the game's pictures (sprites) in the game folder, I figured it'll be easy to make some sort of comic book with it. Since there are also separate pictures for each body part, it was easy to combine them and create new poses and moods for the characters.

The initial idea was to make humorous short comics to comment on the different things in the game Darkest Dungeon. Like how steep the learning curve is, how fast things can go wrong, how the stress level can become the main enemy and so on.

After my first comic book page I realized that this idea is not good since the game is in Early Access and things were constantly changing. For example, I could make a short comic book story that comments on an overpowered monster, but then it would have been in vain when the developers nerf that monster. So after long consideration I decided to make a comic book story of the two characters that will always be there in the beginning for every player - Reynauld and Dismas.

Final comment:
To my surprise my comic book was very well received (as for now it holds a solid position in the top 5) and almost all in the comments section are looking forward for part 2. When I finished this comic I wanted to continue with part 2, but decided to wait until there'll be more content and more fan made art which I could use, as well as when I have free time, desire and inspiration.

Title: Orc or die!
Release Date: 19 April 2015
Guide Content:
Short introduction for an Orc faction in the game Sovereignty: Crown of Kings.
Reception: Mostly positive

Guide creation:
My seventh guide was made out of desire to add something to this game's gaming community. Though I learned from my previous guide that making a guide for an Early Access game is foolish, I decided to make one anyways since I wanted to make a guide for orcs. Since I love the idea of the orc race, it didn't matter to me for which game I'll create a guide, I just wanted to make a guide for orcs. This game was the newest game that had orcs in it, so I waited for the release.

For the guide's profile picture I edited an in-game existing orc picture. The picture actually shows that the orc is holding a decapitated head by his waist, but I changed it so that the orc is holding the head on eye level. The header in this guide was made out of a combination of the game's main title picture (body and background) and an orc unit (face). I was tempted to use orc pictures from other media, but I did not, I only used pictures from the game.

The end result was a simple introduction guide for the orc race of the game. Writing it reminded me of my first guide "I, Omniknight", because I wrote that guide roleplaying the Omniknight, this guide I wrote while roleplaying an orc. Since it's just an introduction guide, I don't think it will be outdated by the time of the game's updated final release.

Final comment:
Looking back now I realize that I mainly created this guide for my own entertainment. For a guide it's not very informative gameplay wise, it just helps the reader to grasp the spirit of the orcs in that game. Obviously the guide received mixed reviews, but at least it is ranked as the best and only guide in the Sovereignty Steam guide section. Technically, I can amusingly state, that this guide is the best guide for the game.

Title: The Brahmin Wood's plight
Release Date: 18 July 2015
Guide Content: A comic book story for the game Fallout Tactics.
Reception: Mostly positive

Guide creation:
My eight guide is a short comic books story for the game Fallout Tactics. I created this back in 2010, it's my very first PhotoShop project. I was very interested in learning how to work in PhotoShop, so I thought I'll practice with creating something exciting.

After my Darkest Dungeon comic book story was very well received, I decided to dig up this old comic book and add it to my Steam guides. I had to edit it, of course, for Steam. I shortened it, translated and changed some bits. The original work can be found here[forum.rev-online.biz] (in Russian).

Final comment:
The Steam community awarded this guide with the top rank in the Fallout Tactics Steam guides section.

Title: CKII DLC timeline
Release Date: 19 July 2015
Guide Content: A general overview of all the DLCs for the game Crusader Kings II.
Reception: Very positive

Guide creation:
My ninth guide was initially an achievement guide for Crusader Kings II. I never worked on an achievement guide, so I thought this would be a good start. The idea was not to list a "how to" guide for those achievements, but to categorize all achievements per DLC.

After I started and made some research, I realized that the CKII wiki page already had such information made and available, and although there wasn't such guide in Steam, I lost interest in the idea. Because I already had some work put into my guide and I didn't want to discard it, so I started to think of a new idea. I came to the conclusion that the CKII Steam guide section would benefit from a guide that shows the timeline, details and just an overview of all CKII DLCs.

I didn't just copy-paste each DLC information. I either shortened it or changed it, so it would be more easy to read. Though I love to work on pictures, most of my work in this guide consisted on editing the text. The only pictures I worked on were the guide profile picture and the "Europa Universalis IV Converter" DLC picture. The guide profile picture was made out of a combination of an achievement picture, four CKII background paintings and the CKII title. The "Europa Universalis IV Converter" DLC picture I jokingly ripped a little to show that the DLC is broken.

Final comment:
Though I like to create guides for entertainment and information purposes, this guide was made only for information purposes. I didn't expect it to get high ratings since it's just an overview of all the DLCs, but surprisingly it is now one of the top Steam CKII guides.

Title: Reynauld the Darkest Crusader (part 2)
Release Date: 04 October 2015
Guide Content: A short comic book story for the game Darkest Dungeon.
Reception: Very positive

Guide creation:
The first comic story was very well received, so a continuation was highly desired. During the months I numerous times tried to start creating part 2. I had my story already completed on paper, but just needed the time and desire to start making the comic book pictures. I created part 1 when the game came out on Steam, so I knew that even when my first comic book story received such favorable reviews, part 2 won't be that popular or seen as much, because the hype around the game went down. Then I got the idea to invite a Steam friend to join as a collaborator on my comic book story. Catherine did provide some advice on how to improve the comic book story, but I mainly needed her to push me to finish the work. I work best when I constrain myself with time limit and by telling Catherine that it will be finished in a week, pushed me to work towards that promised goal. I wouldn't want the lady think of me as a liar ... I have enough ex-girlfriends who do that.

Final comment:
When I discovered that this game's pictures can be found in the folder, I created part 1 as fast as possible within 12 hours. I wanted to be the first who creates a fan made comic book story for the game, but even now my comic book story is the only one available on Steam. I'm sort of surprised since the pictures are all there, just need to put them together. Why nobody else does it? Anyways, for part 2 I have spent 2 weeks. I have created my own unique character pictures, I created an army of soldiers, good fights, romance, nudity, sad and funny dialogue. But no matter how much effort I put in, part 1 still remains more viewed and liked. I'm still happy that both are equally accepted by the players community, but I will need to think of a new "push" for my final part 3.

Title: A guide to all my guides
Release Date: 02 January 2016
Guide Content:
A short guide and development details about all my created guides.

Guide creation:
After exactly one year and 10 guides, I decided to make a personal guide just for me. I enjoy writing Steam guides, it makes me feel as a part of that great game I made the guide for. The Steam profile showcase "My Guides" only allows to show 4 existing guides. Obviously that is not enough if I want to show all my guides, so I decided to create this guide. One guide about all my other guides, so I could put it under "Favorite Guide" in my Steam profile showcase.

Final comment:
This "A guide to all my guides" guide was made to remind me how I was working on all my guides. My thought process, my drafts and just basically the "making of". It is also a place of my failed guides - the guides I wanted to make but cancelled for one reason or the other.

Title: «Я – Рыцарь Света»
Release Date: 05 March 2016
Guide Content: A Russian version of my first guide "I, Omniknight".
Reception: Overwhelmingly positive

Guide creation:
A Russian gamer Viotherial contacted me with the desire to translate my very first Steam guide "I, Omniknight". That guide meant a lot to me since it allowed me to depart peacefully from Dota 2 and Omniknight (I only played him), but it also gave me the desire to create more Steam guides.
I was surprised that Viotherial even found my original guide since by now it's very difficult to stumble upon it due to the sheer amount of Dota 2 guides. When he came to me with this translation suggestion, I did hate myself, because it didn't even enter my mind to translate my Omniknight guide for the Dota 2 Russian gaming community.
Viotherial at first wanted to make a simple translation of my guide (just changing the language to Russian), but I saw the opportunity to improve all my pictures, and so we agreed that Viotherial will mainly focus on his epic translation, while I will prepare the pictures. Working with Viotherial was fun and relaxing. We didn't rush our work and we made sure that the text was easy yet amazing to read and the pictures were polished and unique. Although I did collaborate with other gamers in the past, the guide collaboration with Viotherial was the first time for me when the workload was evenly divided and the collaboration experience was not only fun, but also very satisfying.
My original guide "I, Omniknight" was my first Steam guide. Although I wasn't new to this kind of work, I was new to the Steam guide creation concept. Looking back at my first guide, I see a lot of things I could've done better. Luckily I was given a chance to do it again, but in a different language. With the experience of 10 Steam guides behind me, I was more than ready to create my best to date Steam guide!

Final comment:
I was making this guide with no real expectations. Me and Viotherial just wanted to make a good guide and publish it for the Russian Dota 2 community to enjoy.
Remember how I was saying that my original guide "I, Omniknight" is difficult to find? Well, this Russian version is now on page 1 if you filter "Top Guides of All Time", rubbing shoulders with guides that are 4-5 years old. Not only did it immediately receive an amazing rating, viewership and favs, it received an overwhelming amount of positive reviews from the Russian Dota 2 community. Even the reviewers themselves were amazed on how much positive comments players gave since by now we all are used to troll and complainy comments.
Although my other guides have a good rating, this guide became my top rated one. I'm proud and amazed with my personal achievement, but I'm also a little sad, because I think I won't be able to beat it any time soon ... but I will sure try!

Title: Total War: Warhammer 100% Achievement Guide
Release Date: 17 June 2016
Guide Content: Achievement guide for the game Total War: Warhammer
Reception: pending

Guide creation:
The Milkman

Final comment:

- Battle Brothers (comic book story)
- Broforce (comic book story)
- Skyhill (Achievement guide)
- Crusader Kings 2 (faction introduction)
- Grim Dawn (Hardcore guide)