Kanban and decks
Decks, cards, and lanes you actually use: features, bugs, polish, spikes. Filter by milestone without cloning a 40-field issue type forest.
Daily ritual
Game-dev task management that protects the day
A daily ritual for game teams: draw a small Hand, honour WIP limits, run Focus, and keep Discord as the hallway instead of a second tracker. This is not a Unity-only page. Engine pins are optional once the ritual works on the web.
The daily kit
Hand, Focus, Discord, decks. Pins join later if the editor is where you ship.
My Hand
A small active set with a real WIP cap. Pull a few cards, ship them, then draw again. The rest of the board stays visible and quiet.
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Focus Mode
Full-screen Hand with checklist, comments, and a timer. The board noise stays outside so you can move a mesh, write a system, or cut a scene.
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Discord
Keep Discord as the hallway. Feedback and status can become tracked cards so channels do not turn into a second backlog.
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Draw a Hand, then stop
Game-dev task management fails when every card is marked in progress. My Hand is a small active set pulled from the guild board. You ship those cards, then draw again. The backlog stays visible and quiet. My Hand is the product name for that cap.
WIP limits that survive a milestone
WIP is not a vibe. It is a number the team can recite. If art, design, and engineering each hold twenty actives, you do not have a process. You have a museum. Cap the Hand so reviews, playtests, and Discord pings have somewhere to land without opening five more cards.
Focus Mode as a timed block
Focus Mode is a full-screen Hand with checklist and timer. Use it for the block where you actually move a mesh, write a system, or cut a scene. Do not use it as another dashboard. When the timer ends, update the card and either stay in Hand or put it back.
Discord in the loop, not on the board
Most game teams already live in Discord. That is fine. The failure is treating a channel as the tracker: titles get rewritten, owners vanish, and the board goes stale. Keep Discord for conversation and build bots. Keep cards as the record. The dedicated Discord in the loop guide covers /bug and /feature intake on Solo Pro and Team.
When Unity enters the ritual
If you ship in Unity, Scene pins and the editor companion can attach a Hand card to the object you are editing. That is a later upgrade, not the definition of this guide. For tool-by-tool Unity shopping, use Best Unity task management tools. For cycles and guild structure, use Unity project management.
FAQ
- What is a sane daily task ritual for a game team?
- Pull a small Hand from the shared board, protect it with a WIP limit, do one Focus block, and keep Discord for alerts instead of a second backlog. End the day by shipping or parking cards so tomorrow's Hand is honest.
- Why do WIP limits matter more than a bigger kanban?
- Game production boards sprawl across art, design, and engineering. A wider board does not create focus. A hard cap on active cards stops thrash and makes stand-ups about the Hand, not the infinite backlog.
- Where does Discord fit if the board is the system of record?
- Discord is the hallway. Use it for pings, builds, and questions. Do not let threads become the task list. Connect Discord so status can land in the guild without copying titles into a channel by hand.
- Is this guide only for Unity teams?
- No. The ritual is engine-agnostic. Unity Scene pins are an extra when you work in that editor. For Unity-specific tool shopping, use the Unity task management guide.
Related
Ready to level up your workflow?
Start free, pull a few cards into My Hand, and ship from one studio board.