How Oxobox Games Built a Data-Driven Board for Sente's Six-Player Strategy

Summary

Oxobox Games recently shared technical details about their upcoming game Sente, focusing on how they leveraged Unity's Timeline and a data-driven board system to create a strategy game where six players can act simultaneously in turn-based combat. Traditional multiplayer strategy games usually rely on sequential turns, but Sente demands all six players to make decisions in real-time during the same round, which poses significant challenges for state synchronization, UI feedback, and combat presentation. The team designed the board as a data-driven structure, allowing tiles, units, and states to be dynamically generated from configuration data, greatly improving development efficiency and content extensibility. Meanwhile, Unity Timeline was used to choreograph action sequences, ensuring that even with simultaneous player inputs, battle animations and event replays remain smooth and expressive. This technical approach not only solves the complexity of synchronized multiplayer but also facilitates future DLC or community-created content. For players, this technology promises a more seamless online experience and deeper tactical possibilities, as simultaneous turns significantly reduce waiting time and add more strategic depth. For the developer community, the talk demonstrates the practical application of data-driven design in complex multiplayer games and how Unity's toolchain…