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Having experienced more than 200 fresh titles this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My best-of compilation is live, and I feel content with the concluding selections, despite being aware plenty of stellar titles may have dropped under the radar. At this point, it's plan is to but sit back, unplug a little, and perhaps take a nice walk in the— oh no, stumbled upon a great game. So much for my peaceful respite!

An Early Contender Emerges

During my off-hours play, typically earmarked for a few oddball curiosities, I've discovered what could be my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that breaks down a traditional dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of major consequence risk and reward. View this a preview for the in-the-know: If you take pride in knowing about a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your indie credit card.

A Strategic Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's a departure from all I've ever played. The concept is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, descending floor after floor on a quest for the sun, which has vanished from this mythical realm. When you play, this results in some standard crawl progression. Pick a hero who has attributes and skills, defeat enemies on every stage of enemies, collect some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and defeat a few biome bosses. Easy to grasp!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The method by which you effectively complete a dungeon room, though. Whenever you enter a new floor, you see a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Each square features 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 exact space you land in is a matter of probability.

You may face a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a quarter likelihood of selecting any given square in a row.

Subsequently, your chances are recalculated. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you choose on a different row first and try to make less risky choices early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get a feel for it.

Manipulating Probability

The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped over the course of a session by picking up teeth that alter which objects you're drawn toward. For example, you could acquire a perk that will lower your chances of hitting a trap, but will also decrease the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers to the utmost to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I focused my stat upgrades toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth I could that would increase my odds of landing on monsters aligned with that strength.
• On a different attempt, I constructed my hero around treasure chests and combined that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I claimed a reward.

The strategic possibilities are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to engage with to enable you to influence the odds the way you want.

A Constant Risk

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. There remains the chance that you have a likely outcome to hit the desired tile but ultimately choose a monster that would deplete your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you navigate a level and determine if to continue selecting or to proceed to the following level rather than testing fate.

Tools such as enemy-killing bombs help cut down the chance, as do some character abilities. A particular character's signature move, activated once clearing four squares, lets gamers to click on a vertical column rather than a horizontal row for that move. Should you use your cards right, you can hold that ability for an optimal time to sidestep a dangerous choice. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the basic action of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is still in early access, and it has another update planned until the final game is launched. An additional hero and a new boss are planned for release before the conclusion of January. The official version likely won't be long after, but the studio haven't committed to a specific release window yet.

A Parting Recommendation

No matter when the complete game arrives, you ought to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been positively obsessed with it, finding all of hidden nuances and storing my run rewards every session to reveal a continuous trickle of permanent unlocks, featuring additional heroes and items available for acquisition mid-attempt. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I have a sense I'll still be attempting that goal when the full version launches. Count me in for the long haul.