~BACKGROUND STORY~

Once I went down the rabbit's hole down the path of securing information of software, it led to a deeper and deeper pit than I was at first anticipating….

If you guys remember, a couple years ago now, I proposed the idea of AGMAPI, an api that will make multiplayer game programming easy! … And as it turned out, it was not easy at all… for secuuurity reasons.

Reflect games did it first, they had everything working with one major problem, their security was lousy and could easily be hacked. This led to problems that would need to be anticipated for multiplayer gaming.

So I created the API with a few security methods. Check to make sure you are logged in, hash a few things to make sure you aren't spoofing the information. Of course this led to many other situations when I started implementing the API into games…

Multiple profiles and game saves. If they arent secure, people can cheat their progress. How are the passwords saved? How can we secure users progress? How can information be cached and securely stored and then sent back to the server?

These questions.. this is what the AGAPI(notice the drop of the M), was designed to do. Take care of all of these security issues and advanced features, so you can make your game and plug the API right into it. You get all the bonuses along with it!

You gotta hand it to xbox live, and steam and all those systems. They appear so simple, but a lot is happening behind the scenes that relatively noone knows about.

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So now for feedback. I know the dropbox method has not worked well before, so I am thinking maybe a combined dropbox with a discussion group will work better. (facebook most likely) I do believe this is still a much anticipated product, and hell maybe make a big influence on the Game Maker platform altogether (but not the main goal). In the future, I would work with people to take the model from Game Maker and translate it to other platforms.

Basically, there will be a little bit of restructuring to make the systems much simpler to understand with its organization. The API still works, but I'd like to see the multiplayer and menus function better, and there will be changes in the API calls as well.

AGAPI is heading towards having purchases be incorporated into the games. Add-ons will cost "Credits" that you can purchase on the "Live Grenade" website (more info on the Live Grenade concept next blog). The system will encourage addons and games to be a little cheaper for the target audience. And LG will get a portion of the money for server expenses, programming costs, maintenance, etc.

…This may just be getting out of hand a bit, but this is all my thoughts in a nutshell on what is possible… I should get ready for work…