Broadway
Broadway is a remake of the classic computer game "Hollywood" by Theatrix, and can be considered a spiritual successor to the Story Builder software. Users create a story by choosing a backdrop, creating actors, and then writing a script. Using animation and the native Text-to-Speech software, the story comes alive.
The Activity can be downloaded here.
Example Screenshot
Usage
There are three main User Interface components in Broadway:
- Stage: This is where the Actors and Backdrop appear. Any animation and action takes place here.
- Tabs: This contains buttons that switch the currently active Panel.
- Panels: This is where the 5 different Panels appear. A Panel is a collection of controls.
The Panels
| Panel Name | Screenshot | Description |
|---|---|---|
| File Panel | 
|
Contains controls to save, load, and create Scripts. You can also modify metadata about the current Script from here, including the title, author, and a description. |
| Backdrop Panel | 
|
Contains controls to change the Backdrop of this Script. |
| Actor Panel | 
|
Contains controls to add, remove, and edit Actors. You can adjust a variety of settings for each Actor, such as their name, skin, voice. |
| Write Panel | 
|
Contains Contains controls to write the Script. Besides the dialogue, you can also direct Actor's to perform actions such as moving around, changing pose and expression, or leaving the stage. |
| Theater Panel | 
|
Contains controls to watch the current Script. |
Development
Packages used:
- Pygame
- Spyral
- PGU
- Simplejson
Broadway was created using Pygame. Spyral is used to simplify the handling of Sprites in the Theater. A modified version of PGU is used to handle the user interface. Finally, Scripts are currently stored using JSON, requiring the Simplejson library.
Planned Features
- More translations
- Spellcheck
- Grammarcheck
- Export to Youtube
- More of the existing content: actors, backdrops, twists, emotions, voices, etc.
- Download content button (from central repository)
- More example stories
- Better text editing features (copy/paste, etc.)
- Props that actors can interact with
- Animations
- Sound Effects and Musical Stings
Author
Austin Cory Bart, for his undergraduate thesis work at the University of Delaware with Dr. Lori Pollock.
Github
This project has a github.