José Luis González Castro

PORTFOLIO

Bio

I’m a composer and game developer based in Pontevedra, Spain. I focused my career towards sound in video games, and over time I started developing my own projects.

Artist Statement

How did you get interested about the deep sea?

I live near the coast and always have had a fascination for the ocean. My connection with the deep sea started specifically when I discovered livestreams from NOAA, Schmidt Ocean, and Nautilus: I was awed by the feat of ingenuity that was bringing to my screen, in high definition and real time, never before explored places and creatures barely known to science. I searched for games or simulators offering that same experience, and (at the time) couldn’t find any, so I decided to make one myself, which became the game subROV. My life and work are since intertwined with the deep-sea, its mysteries and wonders -an endless source of inspiration and research.     

What do you imagine that deep-sea biological sciences can do?

We humans are so far removed from the deep-sea, it is so out of our reach by natural means, that the planet’s innermost sphere of life is also, to us, its alien-most. Deep-sea biological sciences help us relate to this essential part of the world by studying what it is and how it links to everything else on the planet, and by extension they help inform our approach to life elsewhere.

Why do you think that bridging Art & Science is important? How would you like to achieve this link?

Art and science are two expressions of the human aspiration to understand. They are already deeply connected, but we must work to remain aware of that connection, both as individuals and as a society. The actual field work, then, is one of removing artificial barriers and encouraging collaborations: e.g. I’m very happy to see artists be part of oceanographic dives. 

Artwork Game

subROV: Underwater Discoveries. subROV is an underwater exploration game that aims to simulate the experience of piloting an ROV in dives around the world. subROV was pre-released on Steam as Early Access in December 2022.

Trailer

José Luis González Castro is working towards a full release next year. In its current state it is fully playable and almost bug-free; he is adding content, and will continue doing so after the release, with the objective of making subROV be the ocean exploration game.

You can find the game on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1648760/

José Luis González Castro is developing the game alone with occasional help from contractors. His work includes all kinds of tasks from programming to art, to various degrees: not every asset or line of code are his, but the sound and music are entirely José Luis’ work.

Music of subROV

Magnapinin’ (bigfin blues) is a special track in the sense that it might be the only tune (jazz or otherwise) ever composed for a deep-sea creature. It is also available on YouTube as a short video, which has captions for lyrics. José Luis created the model of the Magnapinna: