🔗 Share this article

Having experienced in excess of 200 new releases this year, I'm formally closing the book on 2025. My year-end list is live, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, even knowing plenty of fantastic releases probably slipped under the radar. At this point, it's plan is to other than unwind, take a short break, and perhaps take a refreshing hike in the— oh no, stumbled upon a great game. So much for my intentions!

An Early Contender Emerges

With my laid-back sessions, usually reserved for a few oddball curiosities, I've encountered what might become my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar roguelike for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of major consequence peril and prize. View this a preview for the in-the-know: If you enjoy in knowing about a game before it's cool, sample Sol Cesto 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 different from everything I'm familiar with. The premise is that you must venture into a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has disappeared from this mythical realm. Mechanically, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Select a character with their own stats and abilities, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, pick up some stat improvements (which are teeth), and overcome a few biome bosses. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

The way you truly navigate a dungeon room, though. Each instance you enter a new floor, the game presents a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Every tile features a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To explore a room, you choose on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you land in is determined by luck.

You might see a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a 25% chance of landing on a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll chances are recalculated. So do you go for it, or do you choose on a different row first and aim for less risky choices early? Herein lies the push-your-luck gameplay on display in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating when you acquire a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

The meta-layer is that your odds can be manipulated over the course of a session by collecting teeth that change what things you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you may obtain a perk that will reduce the probability of hitting a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about influencing the statistics to the utmost to have a improved likelihood at landing where you want.
• During one attempt, I invested my attribute improvements toward brute force and chose every teeth I could that would boost my chances of attracting me toward monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I constructed my hero around treasure chests and combined that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes every time I secured loot.

The strategic possibilities are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to experiment with to let you manipulate numbers to your preference.

A Persistent Tension

Of course, it's still a game of chance. There remains the risk that you have an 80% chance to land on the desired tile but end up landing a foe that would take out your remaining life. All selections is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you clear a floor out and decide when to continue selecting or to advance to the subsequent stage rather than pushing your luck.

Items like explosive devices assist in minimizing the chance, as do some special skills. A particular character's unique ability, activated once selecting four tiles, allows players to click on a vertical line instead of a row on a turn. By employing your cards right, you can save that move for a crucial point to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising level of strategy in the simple act of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has another update scheduled until the complete edition is unleashed. An additional hero and a new boss are expected to drop sometime in January. The official version may not be far behind, but the studio haven't set a final date yet.

A Final Thought

No matter when its 1.0 launch occurs, you ought to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, discovering its little secrets and saving my accumulated currency every session to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, including additional heroes and items purchasable mid-attempt. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I'll continue working on that task when the official release drops. Count me in for the long haul.