Shroudbreaker

Does your life have a sound track?

I mean, if your life was a movie, what would be your theme? Does music inspire you to run or dance, drive fast or play hard, or to feel as if you could leap from tall buildings or fly? Do you hear the Rocky music when you are training, striving towards a goal? Do you hear Jurassic’s sweeping theme when you discover something mind blowing? How about the Field of Dreams or the Lord of the Rings epic music? You might not even be aware of the impact music has had on you until the credits roll, even though excellent cinematic music moves you, pushes and compels you through a film creating a significant part of the experience. The same can be said of gaming music.

If you are unfamiliar with gaming, you may not realize that some of the greatest contemporary cinematic music has been written for game scores. I’m thinking of the massive thematic scores for games like Mass Effect, Halo, Journey. Final Fantasy, God of War, Uncharted, to name a few. If you are a gamer or know people who are, you might have themes in mind. I have a favorite Pandora station made entirely of movie and game scores, sweeping, epic, emotive, and lastingly impactful.

My family plays video games together, online. We recently introduced my daughter, Cara, to Sea of Thieves, a game, Ben and Caleb, my son and grandson (Cara’s son) and I had played countless hours before. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, it is a pirate adventure game filled with lots of exploring, looting, and yes, a good bit of shooting/combat. There are adventures and quests you can acquire, gaining reputation and achieving doubloons and gold, fame and fortune and a huge amount of fun and satisfaction. Parts of the game are trope-y and goofy, but mostly it is epic in scale. You sail a ship of your design: a small Sloop (max 2 players), a Brigantine (max 3 players) or a Galleon (max 4 online companions, either friends in a party or random match-made team mates) across gorgeous rolling oceans, through thunder and lightning, pitted against skeleton, ghost or human pirate ships.

The best part about online gaming is finding a game that several of your party loves to play together. That is how we came to be playing Sea of Thieves with three generations of family members, aged from 28 to 67! These voyages are treacherous, dangerous, thrilling and challenging. Each player plays any or all of the roles necessary to sail successfully. The game doesn’t really have a story arc, just challenges and adventures that yield loot and coins that you can spend on reputation or ship’s livery or fancy pirate attire or a pet cockatoo. But as I said, the BEST part is playing together.

Recently we sailed off of the known map into a region called The Shroud, with only a journal and a talisman to guide us. The ocean turned blood red, the gems on the talisman glowed in succession as we sailed further and deeper into the unknown. The bowsprit erupted in streams of color, engulfing the ship is a shroud of light. Finally, after what seemed a very long time, our ship emerged on the other side of the shroud into daylight, to swelling music, epic and heart breaking. I screamed, gasped and cried real tears. I felt like we had accomplished something real. And in fact, we had: I had sailed with my family for many hours over several weeks to complete the tall tales that led us to this destination. That IS something. For us, the time spent online together sharing these adventures is the highlight of the week. And for me right now, the musical score of my life is that of the Sea of Thieves, ‘The Shroudbroken’ from the Tall Tales - Shores of Gold.

~@CalamityXTJane
Christy