How Apps Talk — APIs Revealed

Coming Soon

1080p • 60FPS

When you open Instagram, it calls APIs. We learn how apps "talk" by calling a public API to fetch live data into our game.

Resources

Input Assets (ZIP) Final Source Code

Phase 1: Intel

Mission Briefing

⏱️ Before You Watch (5 mins)

Today's Secret: When you check the weather on your phone, your phone doesn't know the weather. It asks a server. That conversation happens via an API. You are about to make your first API call.

What you should have ready:

Your game project
Internet connection (essential for APIs!)

🧠 Quick Concepts

Term	Simple Meaning
API	Application Programming Interface (The Waiter)
Request	Ordering food (Asking for data)
Response	Getting food (Receiving data)
Endpoint	The specific URL you ask (e.g., /weather)

🤔 Think About

Before watching, consider:

The Waiter Analogy:
- Menu = Documentation
- You = The App
- Waiter = API
- Kitchen = Server
- Food = Data (JSON!)

🎯 By the End

After this episode, you'll:

✅ Understand HTTP methods (GET vs POST)
✅ Fetch real data from the internet
✅ Display that data in your game!

Order up! 🛎️

Phase 3: Debrief

Mission Report

📝 What We Learned

APIs connect the world: They let apps share data without sharing code.
GET request: Asking for data ("Get me the weather").
POST request: Sending data ("Post this photo").
Fetch API: The Javascript tool we used to call the API.
Integration: We added a "Quote of the Day" to our game loading screen by calling a public Quotes API.

🔗 Key Code Snippet

// Calling an API
async function getQuote() {
  const response = await fetch('https://api.quotable.io/random');
  const data = await response.json(); // It returns JSON!
  console.log(data.content);
}