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Having experienced more than 200 recent games this year, I'm formally wrapping things up on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the final results, even knowing numerous excellent games may have dropped by the wayside. Currently, my only nothing for me to do but sit back, disconnect briefly, and perhaps take a pleasant stroll in the— well, shoot, stumbled upon a brilliant title. And just like that, goodbye to my peaceful respite!

An Early Front-Runner Appears

In my more off-hours play, usually reserved for a selection of unusual games, I've discovered potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a classic dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of major consequence peril and prize. View this a preview for the in-the-know: If you enjoy discovering a game before it's popular, give Sol Cesto a try so you can punch a hole in your indie credit card.

A Calculated Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's different from everything I've previously experienced. The premise is that you must venture into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper to find the sun, which has gone missing from this mythical realm. When you play, this creates some familiar roguelike structure. Pick a hero who has stats and abilities, fight through each level of enemies, pick up some passive buffs (in the form of teeth), and overcome a few biome bosses. Simple enough!

The Distinctive Gameplay Loop

How you actually clear a dungeon room, is unique. Whenever you enter a new floor, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces either contains a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To make a move, you choose on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you land in is up to chance.

You may face a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a 25% chance of landing on any given square in a row.

Then, you'll odds shift. The question becomes: Do you press your luck, or do you click on a alternative option first and aim for safer moves early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay in action in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The procedural hook is that your odds can be manipulated through a run by picking up teeth that alter which objects you're drawn toward. To illustrate, you may obtain a perk that will decrease your odds of landing on a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of getting a reward too.

• Crafting a loadout is about influencing the statistics to the utmost to have a higher chance at getting your desired outcome.
• On a particular session, I put all my attribute improvements toward brute force and selected all the teeth possible that would increase my odds of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength.
• On a different attempt, I constructed my hero around reward boxes and paired that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I secured loot.

The build options are not endless, but they are sufficient to work with to allow you to tweak the odds to your preference.

A Persistent Risk

Of course, at its heart, it's a game of chance. You constantly face the chance that you have an 80% chance to land on the square you want but ultimately choose a foe that would eliminate your remaining life. Each click is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you clear a floor out and choose whether to keep clicking or to proceed to the following level instead of testing fate.

Consumables including enemy-killing bombs help cut down the chance, similar to some special skills. A particular character's signature move, powered up by selecting four tiles, allows players to click on a vertical column in place of a horizontal row on a turn. If you play this strategically, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to avoid a risky decision. You'll find an astonishing amount of nuance in the simple act of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in early access, and it has another update to go before the final game is unleashed. An additional hero and a new boss are scheduled to arrive sometime in January. The 1.0 release likely won't be far behind, but the creators haven't announced a final date yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

Whenever its 1.0 launch occurs, you ought to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I have been completely engrossed with it, discovering its small details and banking my earned gold per attempt to unlock a steady stream of persistent upgrades, such as additional heroes and items available for acquisition mid-attempt. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I suspect I'll continue pursuing that objective when 1.0 finally hits. Sign me up for the complete journey.