Game production pipeline and milestones: phases, deadlines and progress
For producers and leads who plan a game from concept to launch. This guide explains the classic game development phases and what a milestone should mean, then shows how the Gameheim Pipeline page tracks phases, deadlines and milestones, and how milestones connect to the tasks on your board.
Game development phases and milestones: why teams lose track
Most games move through a recognizable sequence of phases. The names vary between studios and publishers, but the shape is similar:
- Concept: the idea, the audience and the pitch. Small team, lots of prototypes.
- Pre-production: proving the game can be made. This is often where a vertical slice is built: a short, polished section that shows final quality for every discipline at once.
- Production: building the bulk of the content and features.
- Alpha: the game is playable end to end and feature complete, even if content and polish are missing.
- Beta: content complete; the team focuses on bugs, performance and polish.
- Gold: the release candidate is approved for launch.
- Live: post-launch updates, patches and live operations.
Inside each phase, milestones mark the points that matter: a playable build for a publisher review, a vertical slice, a demo for an event, a certification submission. The trouble is that phases and milestones usually live in a slide deck or a document, while the actual work lives on a task board. The two drift apart. Nobody can say, with evidence, how close the team is to alpha, and a milestone is declared "done" in a meeting while half of its tasks are still open.
What a useful milestone looks like
A good milestone has a clear title, a date, and a definition of done that can be checked. The strongest definition is a list of tasks: when all of them are done, the milestone is reached. That turns a milestone from an opinion into a fact the whole team can see.
How Gameheim tracks the production pipeline and milestones
Every Gameheim project has a Pipeline page. At the top, the Development Pipeline card shows the project's phases in order, which phase is current (for example Phase 3/7), the deadline of each phase and how many of its milestones are complete.
Seven default phases you can change
A new project starts with seven phases: Concept, Pre-Production, Production, Alpha, Beta, Gold and Live. Leads and Admins can rename them, reorder them, add new ones (such as a vertical slice, an event demo or a second alpha) and delete the ones the project does not need, from Pipeline Settings.
The current phase follows the milestones
The current phase is always the first phase that is not completed. A phase completes on its own when every one of its milestones is completed, and the next open phase becomes current. You never have to move the project forward by hand, and the pipeline cannot claim you are in beta while alpha milestones are still open.
Two kinds of milestone
- Ad-hoc: a milestone that a Lead or Admin marks complete by hand. Good for external events, such as a publisher sign-off.
- Linked to tasks: a milestone tied to tasks from the Task Board. It completes automatically when all linked tasks are Done, and every project member is notified.
Milestone progress from the Task Board
Every task has a Milestone field. The Milestones card on the Pipeline page groups tasks by that field and shows, for each milestone, how many tasks are done out of the total and the percentage. Click a milestone to see its tasks and open any of them with Open on the task board. Next to it, Tasks by Discipline shows a stacked chart of Done, In Progress, To Do and Blocked tasks per discipline, and Sprint Summary counts Total Scope, Completed, In Progress, Remaining, Blocked and In Review across the project.
Milestone dates and team capacity
A milestone can also carry a target date, set from the Milestone roll-up in Capacity Planning. There, Gameheim compares the hours still required by the milestone's tasks with the hours the assigned people and vendors have available before that date. This is how you spot an unrealistic milestone weeks before it slips.
How to set up phases and milestones in Gameheim
Every project member can view the Pipeline page. Configuring phases, setting deadlines and managing milestones is reserved to Leads and Admins.
- A project with tasks on the Task Board. See task tracking for game development.
- The Lead or Admin role to configure phases, set deadlines and create or complete milestones.
Open Pipeline Settings
Click Pipeline in the sidebar, then Configure on the Development Pipeline card. The Pipeline Settings page lists the phases. Default phases carry a default tag and the current phase a current tag.
Shape the phases to your project
- Drag a row to reorder it.
- Click a name, or Rename, to change it.
- Type in New phase name (e.g. Megagrants Demo, Alpha 2…) and click Add phase to add one at the end.
- Delete a phase you do not need. Its milestones are deleted too, and tasks that pointed to them keep their data but lose the milestone reference. If you delete the current phase, the next open phase becomes current.
Note:Completed phases must stay at the top of the list. Gameheim refuses to place an open phase before a completed one.Click Back to Pipeline when you are done.
Set a deadline on each phase
On the Development Pipeline card, click the pencil under a phase (Set deadline), pick a date and press Enter. The deadline appears under the phase name.
Add milestones to a phase
Click a phase to open it. The window shows how many milestones are completed. Click Add Milestone, enter a Milestone title and an optional Description, then choose Ad-hoc or Linked to tasks. For a linked milestone, select the tasks it depends on; all of them must be Done for the milestone to complete.
Connect tasks to milestones
On the Task Board, open a task, click Edit and choose a Milestone. The task now counts in that milestone's progress on the Milestones card.
Complete milestones
Linked milestones complete by themselves when their last task reaches Done, including when the task is closed by a Perforce submit made from Gameheim. For an ad-hoc milestone, open the phase and click the circle next to the milestone (Mark as complete). The milestone then shows Completed by and the name of whoever completed it, project members are notified, and the Activity Feed on the dashboard records Milestone reached.
Roll back a phase if work reopens
Reopening a milestone (click its green check, Mark as not completed) never moves the project back on its own. If an earlier phase has open milestones again, open that phase: a banner explains the situation and offers Rollback to that phase. Rolling back reopens it and clears the completion dates of every phase from that one onwards. Milestones and their completion status are not changed.
Pipeline page reference
| Element | What it shows | Who can change it |
|---|---|---|
| Development Pipeline | Phases in order, current phase, deadlines, completed milestones per phase | Leads and Admins (via Configure and Set deadline) |
| Phase window | Milestones of the phase, their type, linked tasks and who completed them | Leads and Admins |
| Milestones | Tasks grouped by their Milestone field, done out of total | Anyone who can edit tasks, by setting the Milestone field |
| Tasks by Discipline | Done, In Progress, To Do and Blocked per discipline | Read only |
| Sprint Summary | Total Scope, Completed, In Progress, Remaining, Blocked, In Review | Read only |
Ad-hoc vs linked milestones
| Ad-hoc | Linked to tasks | |
|---|---|---|
| Completes | When a Lead or Admin clicks Mark as complete | Automatically when all linked tasks are Done (a Lead or Admin can also complete it by hand) |
| Good for | External events: reviews, sign-offs, trade shows | Deliverables you can express as tasks: a vertical slice, a feature-complete build |
| Notification | Project members are notified | Project members are notified |
| Activity Feed | Milestone reached, with who completed it | Milestone reached, completed by the system |
Troubleshooting the pipeline
- The project did not move to the next phase. A phase completes only when every milestone in it is completed. A phase with no milestones never completes on its own.
- I cannot see Configure or the deadline pencil. Only Leads and Admins can configure phases and set deadlines.
- A milestone disappeared from a task. The phase that held the milestone was deleted. The task keeps its data but no longer points to a milestone.
- The Milestones card does not list a milestone I created. The card is built from tasks: it lists a milestone once at least one task has it in its Milestone field.
Frequently asked questions
What are the phases of game development?
A common sequence is concept, pre-production, production, alpha, beta, gold and live operations. Pre-production proves the game can be made, often with a vertical slice. Alpha usually means feature complete and playable end to end, beta means content complete with the focus on bugs and polish, and gold is the approved release build. Studios rename and split these phases to match their publisher and platform.
What is the difference between a phase and a milestone?
A phase is a long stretch of the project with one main goal, such as production or beta. A milestone is a specific, checkable point inside a phase, such as a vertical slice or a publisher review build. In Gameheim each milestone belongs to a phase, and a phase is complete when all of its milestones are complete.
What is a vertical slice in game development?
A vertical slice is a small section of the game built to final quality in every discipline: art, animation, design, code, audio and UI. It proves the team can hit the target quality and gives a realistic basis for estimating the rest of production. In Gameheim you can add it as its own phase or as a milestone linked to the tasks that produce it.
Can milestones complete automatically when tasks are done?
Yes. In Gameheim a milestone of type Linked to tasks completes automatically when every linked task reaches Done, whether the task was moved on the board or closed by a Perforce submit made from Gameheim. Project members are notified, and if it was the last open milestone of its phase, the phase completes and the next one becomes current.
Can I change the default pipeline phases?
Yes. Gameheim seeds seven phases (Concept, Pre-Production, Production, Alpha, Beta, Gold, Live) on every new project. Leads and Admins can rename, reorder, add and delete phases from Pipeline Settings. The only rule is that completed phases must stay at the top of the list, before any open phase.