(received ; accepted ) PACS. 64.70.Pf -Glass transitions. PACS. 75.10.Nr -Spin-glass and other random models. PACS. 61.20.Gy -Theory and models of liquid structure.Abstract. -We study the role of different terms in the N -body potential of glass forming systems on the critical dynamics near the glass transition. Using a simplified spin model with quenched disorder, where the different terms of the real N -body potential are mapped into multi-spin interactions, we identified three possible scenarios. For each scenario we introduce a "minimal" model representative of the critical glassy dynamics near, both above and below, the critical transition line. For each "minimal" model we discuss the low temperature equilibrium dynamics.In the last years many efforts have been devoted to study the relaxation dynamics of undercooled liquids near the (structural) glass transition. When the temperature of the liquid is lowered down to the critical glass temperature relaxation times becomes exceedingly long and diffusional degrees of freedom freeze over very long time scales. As a consequence the difference between a structural glass and a disordered system with quenched disorder, which may seem essential, becomes less and less sharp as the transition is approached since the particles in the liquid become trapped in random position (cage effect) and the dynamics of a single degrees of freedom resembles the relaxational dynamics in a random quenched potential. The idea that a undercooled liquid is a sort of random solid, which dates back to Maxwell [1], has been recently largely used in the study of the glass transition in undercooled liquids. In this scenario is, for example, the study of the Instantaneous Normal Mode (INM) [2], where the N-body potential is analyzed in terms of normal modes of oscillations about a given instantaneous configuration. Using this technique many properties of the N-body potential in models of undercooled liquids have been recently traced out [2,3,4,5,6].