Interview: The Visionary Behind Full Circle (Adolfo Juan Fernando Gazzo Castañeda, Solo Developer)
Full Circle has captured attention for its stunning 2.5HD visual style and its promise to revitalize the golden era of JRPGs. Behind this massive undertaking is a single developer from Peru, who brings his talents in coding, music, graphics, and even voice-acting to the table. We sat down to discuss the creation of his magnum opus.
Welcome to Impulse Gamer Adolfo!
You’ve described Full Circle as your magnum opus. How does it feel to see a project that started as a personal dream—watching your brother play games as a kid—finally being revealed to the world at the Indie Quest 2026 Showcase?
I was so nervous. After the trailer aired, the press release went out, the Steam posts went live and all that, I couldn’t sleep. My sleep schedule was and still is really weird anyways. But that evening was special. Also because my publisher is located in Germany. They prepared everything but some things you need to set live manually and it was like 2am in the morning for them. So they prepared everything for me and I was super nervous about hitting the wrong buttons or forgetting something. But yeah, it worked out well and I’m very happy with the response so far.
You wear many hats on this project: programmer, musician, artist, and even a voice actor. How do you balance these distinct creative roles, and do you feel that handling everything yourself gives the game a more cohesive “soul” that a larger team might miss?
Not sure about the soul part. It definitely is my vision in the end. But also, yeah, I am a solo developer. But that doesn’t mean I’m working without any feedback. My publisher helped me especially with menus, UI design and some programming advice too. And at some point I might even outsource some tasks to freelancers. I am not doing everything on my own because I want to be the solo developer legend but because right now it is the right approach to what I am trying to create. Also the voice-overs, there will be others in the future too. And the voice-overs are more like battle shouts or general comments, things like that. But still, I can’t lend my voice to so many characters haha.
Full Circle is explicitly inspired by the PSX-era JRPG classics, from Legend of Dragoon to Breath of Fire. What was the specific element or “magic” from those titles that you felt was lost in modern games, and how are you bringing it back?
I grew up with these games. They will always have a special place in my heart. I also like modern games and they also influenced me, of course. But that magic… I think it is based on the fact that I was a kid. And I want to replicate that feeling. Not sure if it was lost for modern games to be honest. I think games just changed but they always did. In like 30 years from now the seven year olds from today will create games based on their childhood experiences. Something I do think made those games special was that the genre was still young, there were no established tropes yet, so each team was experimenting and creating new things without fear. And that spirit of experimentation is what I take away the most from that era. On the other hand I believe that the farther you are away from something and dig into it, you have the chance of adding new perspectives to it. So while I try to iterate on the systems I loved from those games, I’m still making my very own game after all. Yes, it takes those systems but it’s also something you haven’t seen yet.
The “Constant Flow” combat system promises strategic turn-based action with real-time precision. Can you tell us more about how this system works and how it avoids the typical “stop-and-go” fatigue of older JRPGs?
The Constant Flow system separates combat into two distinct phases. First you have the planning phase, which is strategic and tactical, where you choose the order and actions for the whole party. You can take as long as you need here to think through your strategy. Then comes the execution phase, where the real-time component kicks in. There aren’t just timing QTEs, there are also mashing ones, rhythm-based ones, and others depending on the attack type. By separating these phases, the player has to stay engaged with the battle over a much longer window, which removes that “waiting” feeling that JRPGs sometimes have, especially during long skill animations. And something is always happening, with the dynamic camera system that’s also represented visually. The main idea is for the player to experiment with combinations of actions and characters to trigger chain attacks, and if you land a perfect QTE you don’t just get a bonus but you also delay the enemy’s turn, reorganizing the action queue and opening up new possibilities. Even the name of the system is tied to the game’s lore, and there’s an explanation for why characters shout the names of their special attacks haha.
You’ve mentioned that your background includes TV voice-over work. How has your experience as a voice actor influenced the way you’ve approached the narrative and character dialogue for Full Circle?
Haha, I’m not really sure if it directly influenced how things work in Full Circle. It’s more of a fun fact about me. I’ve been doing voices for fun my whole life, plus my main instrument as a musician is my voice, I’ve been a singer since my teenage years. Since I’m a composer and audio producer, I have my own studio and ended up voicing all the male characters in the Latin American version of Sheriff Labrador which is a Chinese cartoon produced by Koreans. The tonality in Full Circle is, uhm, slightly less made for kids, you know.
The world of Full Circle presents a striking contrast between humanity’s desperate life in flying cities and the mysterious, ruined surface below. What kind of emotional tone or atmosphere are you aiming to evoke with this post-apocalyptic setting?
The world in Full Circle is quite rough. The ruins of the past are omnipresent. And you can see that the world was once inhabited but something really bad happened. I want that feeling to be everywhere as well. But at the same time it’s a living world, and that’s reflected in the colors, the fauna and the flora. I don’t want it to feel like the gray dystopian future we’re used to. And since there are other human beings, a young, living, breathing society even, hope for a better future is also an important theme. But also uncertainty. Can that hope be fulfilled? Well. We’ll see, right?
Developing a game of this scope entirely solo is a monumental task. What has been the biggest technical or creative hurdle you’ve faced so far, and how did you overcome it?
Adjusting things. And redoing entire systems from scratch. I taught myself game development and I can’t even tell you how often I had to redo entire systems. I learned along the way. I made mistakes. I built systems which worked for me in one scene but not with the greater picture in mind. Systems which were brought down by my scope and my own ideas. And I got so much better over time so it was worth it. Haha, also, the full body portraits during the combo scenes in battle you’ve seen in the trailer? I did them like 2 days before the trailer was finished cause I felt the need to implement them. I hadn’t painted illustrations of that scale in a long time, since pixel art is something I do practically every day, so it was a welcome task to get back into it.
With a playable demo coming to Gamescom later this year, what is the one thing you are most excited for players to experience for the first time when they pick up the controller?
I think the game in general. It will be the first time that someone will be playing the game outside of a very small circle (pun not intended) of people. And I just hope that they will also love what I’ve created here so far. It sounds weird but those who’ve been playing it now for so long they all say it’s great but you never really know until you see people who never played it before.
For more information on Full Circle, please visit https://store.steampowered.com/app/1439270/Full_Circle/
About the Author
Andrew Bistak When he's not trying to save the world, Andrew enjoys travel (although loathes turbulence), going to the movies, reading and being a dad to his two dogs (and now twins) with his wife.
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