Google is launching the first batch of its Google+ APIs to developers today, allowing them to play around with public data already available on the platform.

The Google blog announcing the release walks developers through a few of the simpler API calls that retrieve profile information and recent public posts (a full list is available here). All apps need to be registered before they can send requests to the Google+ API. Apps can collection this information from first-time users with the plus.me OAuth2 scope that generates a dialogue box:

As far as the game-building aspect goes, Google is providing open source libraries for several game-friendly languages, including Java, Python, Ruby, PHP, Objective C, and .NET. Documentation, terms and policies can be found on the Google Developers site.

The Google+ Games platform currently only has a handful of titles available from developer partners including Playdom, Zynga and wooga. Two titles were also developed by Google in-house outfit LabPixies, which was acquired last year. We had hoped to see some games from Slide — which was also bought by Google — on the G+ Games platform, but the studio shut its doors late last month.