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After playing in excess of 200 new releases this year, I'm formally closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is published, and I am at peace with the final results, accepting that plenty of stellar titles likely fell by the wayside. At this point, it's nothing for me to do other than unwind, disconnect briefly, and possibly go for a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, discovered one more great game. There go my intentions!

A Surprising Front-Runner Appears

In my more casual gaming time, typically earmarked for a handful of quirky titles, I've encountered what could be my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of significant risk risk and reward. Consider this a preview for the in-the-know: If you take pride being aware of a game before it's popular, give Sol Cesto a try so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Strategic Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I'm familiar with. The concept is that you must venture into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has disappeared from its world. In practice, that makes for some standard crawl progression. Choose an adventurer with their own stats and abilities, fight through each level of foes, collect some stat improvements (in the form of teeth), and defeat a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!

The Novel Central System

The method by which you effectively complete a chamber, however. Whenever you start another stage, you're shown a sixteen-square board of boxes. All spaces features a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you land in is a matter of probability.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of landing on any given square in a row.

Subsequently, your odds shift. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you choose on a different row first and try to make safer moves early? Herein lies the push-your-luck gameplay in action in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing after you develop its rhythm.

Shaping the Odds

The procedural hook is that your odds can be manipulated over the course of a session by picking up teeth that modify the types of squares you're more attracted to. As an instance, you could acquire a perk that will lower your chances of landing on a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of finding a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers to the utmost to have a higher chance at getting your desired outcome.
• In one run, I focused my attribute improvements toward physical attack/defense and picked as many teeth I could that would increase my odds of landing on monsters with that damage type.
• On a different attempt, I built my character around loot caches and coupled it with a perk that would debuff nearby foes whenever I claimed a reward.

The customization choices are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to engage with to allow you to tweak numbers according to your strategy.

A Constant Risk

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There remains the risk that you have an 80% chance to select the square you want but end up landing a foe that would deplete your remaining life. All selections is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you work through a stage and choose whether to keep clicking or when to move on to the following level rather than risking it all.

Items like enemy-killing bombs aid in reducing the chance, similar to some character abilities. One hero's signature move, activated once selecting four tiles, lets gamers to select a column rather than a row for that move. Should you use your cards right, you can save that move for the right moment to sidestep a dangerous choice. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the simple act of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is currently in development, and it has a final update to go before the final game is launched. An additional hero and a fresh guardian are scheduled to arrive by the end of January. The 1.0 release may not be far behind, but the studio haven't committed to a final date yet.

A Concluding Thought

Whenever its 1.0 launch occurs, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your radar. I have been completely engrossed with it, discovering its hidden nuances and storing my run rewards per attempt to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, including new characters and items purchasable mid-attempt. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I will remain attempting that goal when 1.0 finally hits. I'm committed for the complete journey.