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After playing in excess of 200 recent games this year, I am officially turning the page on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I am at peace with the final results, even knowing numerous excellent games may have dropped by the wayside. Currently, my only plan is to but sit back, unplug a little, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, discovered one more amazing experience. There go my peaceful respite!

A Premature Front-Runner Appears

With my laid-back sessions, often set aside for a selection of unusual games, I've discovered potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of major consequence danger and payoff. Take this as an early adopter's heads-up: If you relish in knowing about a game before it hits the mainstream, give Sol Cesto a try so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Tactical Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I've ever played. The concept is that you need to explore a dungeon, going down level by level on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from this mythical realm. When you play, this results in some familiar roguelike structure. Pick a hero with their own stats and abilities, clear floor after floor of enemies, collect some passive buffs (which are teeth), and overcome a few stage-ending champions. Simple enough!

The Distinctive Central System

How you actually clear a chamber, however. Whenever you start another stage, the game presents a four-by-four matrix of boxes. All spaces features a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To make a move, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you land in is a matter of probability.

You may face a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a 25% chance of selecting a particular space in a row.

After that, the chances are recalculated. The question becomes: Do you press your luck, or do you click on a alternative option first and try to make more cautious selections early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic in action in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating after you develop a feel for it.

Shaping the Odds

The procedural hook is that your odds can be manipulated through a run by picking up teeth that change what things you're drawn toward. For example, you may obtain a perk that will lower your chances of encountering a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers to the utmost to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• During one attempt, I put all my stat upgrades toward physical attack/defense and picked as many teeth I could that would increase my odds of attracting me toward monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I constructed my hero around treasure chests and paired that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes whenever I opened a chest.

The customization choices are limited, but there's enough to experiment with to enable you to influence probabilities according to your strategy.

A Constant Gamble

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the chance that you have a likely outcome to hit the desired tile but end up landing a monster that would take out your remaining life. Every move is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you navigate a level and determine if to press onward or when to move on to the next floor instead of testing fate.

Consumables including enemy-killing bombs aid in reducing the chance, just like some special skills. One hero's special power, activated once clearing four squares, enables you to select a vertical line instead of a row during that action. By employing your cards right, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising level of strategy in the simple act of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is remaining in development, and it has at least one more update to go before the final game is launched. A new character and a fresh guardian are expected to drop before the conclusion of January. The official version likely won't be much later, but the creators haven't committed to a concrete launch day yet.

A Final Endorsement

No matter when its 1.0 launch occurs, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, discovering its hidden nuances and banking my earned gold every session to unlock a steady stream of permanent unlocks, including new characters and items I can buy during a run. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I get the feeling I will remain attempting that goal when the full version launches. Sign me up for the long haul.