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.

Example Screenshot

Usage

Generalized version of Broadway's User Interface

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

[1]