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Having experienced more than 200 recent games this year, It's time to turning the page on 2025. My annual roundup is published, and I am at peace with the final results, accepting that numerous excellent games likely fell under the radar. Now, there's plan is to other than unwind, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— oh no, found another amazing experience. And just like that, goodbye to my plans!

An Early Front-Runner Appears

In my more casual gaming time, typically earmarked for a selection of unusual games, I've encountered potentially my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that breaks down a classic dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of significant risk risk and reward. Take this as 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 burn a spot in your indie credit card.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I've ever played. The concept is that you must venture into a dungeon, descending floor after floor to find the sun, which has vanished from the fantasy world. When you play, this creates some familiar roguelike structure. Pick a hero possessing unique attributes and skills, clear floor after floor of enemies, pick up some permanent upgrades (in the form of teeth), and vanquish a few area guardians. Simple enough!

The Unique Central System

The method by which you actually clear a area, though. Every time you start another stage, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To proceed, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you select is up to chance.

You may face a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of landing on a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll chances are recalculated. So do you press your luck, or do you click on a alternative option first and attempt some less risky choices early? That's the tension between chance and safety on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

The roguelike twist is that your odds can be manipulated during an attempt by gathering teeth that alter which objects you're drawn toward. For example, you may obtain a perk that will lower your chances of hitting a trap, but will also decrease the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers optimally to have a better shot at selecting the optimal square.
• On a particular session, I put all my stat upgrades toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth possible that would improve my probability of attracting me toward monsters aligned with that strength.
• On a different attempt, I developed my adventurer around treasure chests and coupled it with a perk that would debuff nearby foes whenever I claimed a reward.

The build options are limited, but it provides ample to engage with to let you manipulate the odds to your preference.

A Constant Risk

Naturally, it remains a game of chance. There remains the possibility that you have a likely outcome to hit the preferred space but end up landing on an enemy that would eliminate your final hit point. Each click is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and decide when to press onward or when to move on to the subsequent stage instead of pushing your luck.

Items like enemy-killing bombs assist in minimizing the chance, as do some character abilities. One hero's unique ability, powered up by selecting four tiles, allows players to click on a vertical line in place of a horizontal row for that move. Should you use this move wisely, you can save that move for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is currently in early access, and it has a final update to go before the complete edition is unleashed. A new character and a fresh guardian are expected to drop sometime in January. The official version probably isn't far behind, but the game's developers haven't committed to a specific release window yet.

A Concluding Recommendation

Whenever it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I've been positively obsessed with it, finding all of small details and banking my earned gold in each run to reveal a continuous trickle of permanent unlocks, including new characters and items I can buy mid-attempt. I still haven't found the deepest level, and I suspect I'll still be attempting that goal when the full version launches. I'm committed for the complete journey.