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Having experienced more than 200 fresh titles this year, I'm formally closing the book on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the ultimate rankings, despite being aware a host of stellar titles probably slipped through the cracks. At this point, it's job is to except relax, disconnect briefly, and perhaps take a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, discovered one more amazing experience. And just like that, goodbye to my intentions!

A Surprising Favorite Surfaces

During my off-hours play, often set aside for a handful of quirky titles, I've discovered potentially my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a conventional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of high stakes peril and prize. Take this as an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride discovering a game before it's popular, sample Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your indie credit card.

A Calculated Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's different from everything I'm familiar with. The premise is that you need to explore a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has vanished from the fantasy world. When you play, this creates some recognizable genre framework. Choose an adventurer possessing unique parameters and powers, defeat enemies on every stage of enemies, pick up some permanent upgrades (in the form of teeth), and defeat a few biome bosses. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

The way you effectively complete a chamber, though. Each instance you start another stage, you're shown a sixteen-square board of boxes. Every tile features a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you select is determined by luck.

You may face a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a 25% chance of hitting a particular space in a row.

After that, the odds shift. The question becomes: Do you press your luck, or do you click on a different row first and attempt some less risky choices early? That's the risk-reward dynamic in action in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing after you develop its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The procedural hook is that your probabilities can be influenced over the course of a session by gathering teeth that modify the types of squares you're more likely to land on. For example, you could acquire a perk that will reduce the probability of encountering a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of landing on a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about influencing the statistics optimally to have a improved likelihood at selecting the optimal square.
• In one run, I focused my power boosts toward physical attack/defense and picked as many teeth possible that would boost my chances of landing on monsters with that damage type.
• On a different attempt, I developed my adventurer around loot caches and combined that with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies each time I secured loot.

The customization choices are limited, but there's enough to work with to enable you to influence numbers to your preference.

A Persistent Risk

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. You constantly face the chance that you have an 80% chance to select the preferred space but wind up hitting a monster that would eliminate your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you clear a floor out and determine if to press onward or to advance to the following level instead of testing fate.

Items like explosive devices help cut down the chance, just like some special skills. One hero's special power, powered up by clearing four squares, allows players to select a column instead of a horizontal line on a turn. By employing this move wisely, you can save that move for the right moment to circumvent a perilous selection. You'll find an astonishing degree of depth in the basic action of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is remaining in early access, and it has at least one more update to go until the complete edition is unleashed. An additional hero and a new boss are planned for release before the conclusion of January. The 1.0 release may not be much later, but the studio haven't set a specific release window yet.

A Parting Endorsement

Whenever it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your radar. For the past week, I've been thoroughly captivated with it, uncovering each of little secrets and saving my accumulated currency per attempt to access a constant flow of persistent upgrades, featuring fresh adventurers and items purchasable while playing. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I will remain attempting that goal when 1.0 finally hits. Count me in for the entire experience.