Image Embed Mechanism for Sharing System#878

A couple of games I’ve seen such as “Parkitect” and “Koikatsu Party” have this really nice system for sharing user-generated content where all the information of the user’s build is embedded as metadata in an otherwise perfectly normal .png image file displaying whatever build it contains. This allows users to preview the builds they’re importing and makes both sharing and collecting builds easy and intuitive for the user, since they’re handling a familiar, well-known file type that will be displayed natively by just about any platform you could share it on. This also helps prevent miscopying/tampering with the info as image data is not easily accessible.

Attached is one such example from the game “Parkitect”. Behaves as a normal .png, but can be saved to the game’s “blueprints” directory and loaded into the game as a functional rollercoaster. The game also supports sharing these files through Steam Workshop, making this process even easier for the user.