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Having experienced in excess of 200 fresh titles this year, It's time to turning the page on 2025. My best-of compilation is published, and I feel content with the final results, despite being aware numerous stellar titles probably slipped through the cracks. Now, there's plan is to except relax, unplug a little, and perhaps take a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, discovered one more great game. So much for my plans!

A Premature Contender Emerges

In my more laid-back sessions, usually reserved for a handful of quirky titles, I've discovered what might become my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a classic dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of major consequence risk and reward. Consider this a hipster's insider tip: If you relish discovering a game before it's cool, test out Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your indie credit card.

A Tactical Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I've previously experienced. The concept is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, descending floor after floor to find the sun, which has vanished from this mythical realm. In practice, this creates some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero with their own attributes and skills, fight through each level of enemies, pick up some stat improvements (in the form of teeth), and defeat a few area guardians. Easy to grasp!

The Unique Central System

The way you effectively complete a chamber, is unique. Each instance you enter a new floor, you see a 4x4 grid of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To explore a room, you choose on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you select is a matter of probability.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a 25% chance of landing on a specific tile 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 safer moves early? That's the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing after you develop its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by picking up teeth that alter which objects you're more likely to land on. For example, you might get a perk that will lower your chances of landing on a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of finding a treasure chest too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math as best you can to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
• In one run, I invested my stat upgrades toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth possible that would improve my probability of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength.
• On a different attempt, I developed my adventurer around loot caches and coupled it with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies whenever I claimed a reward.

The strategic possibilities are somewhat constrained, but it provides ample to experiment with to let you manipulate probabilities to your preference.

An Ever-Present Gamble

Naturally, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have a high probability to hit the square you want but ultimately choose a foe that would deplete your remaining life. Each click is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you clear a floor out and determine if to keep clicking or to advance to the subsequent stage as opposed to testing fate.

Tools such as enemy-killing bombs aid in reducing the chance, just like some hero powers. An adventurer's signature move, powered up by making four moves, allows players to select a vertical column in place of a horizontal row on a turn. If you play this strategically, you can reserve that option for the right moment to sidestep a dangerous choice. You'll find an astonishing level of strategy in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is remaining in early access, and it has a final update scheduled until the final game is unleashed. A new character and a fresh guardian are scheduled to arrive by the end of January. The full launch likely won't be long after, but the creators haven't committed to a final date yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

Whenever its 1.0 launch occurs, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I've been thoroughly captivated with it, finding all of little secrets and saving my accumulated currency per attempt to access a constant flow of persistent upgrades, such as new characters and items I can buy while playing. To this day, I have not completed the dungeon, and I have a sense I'll continue attempting that goal when the official release drops. I'm committed for the long haul.