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Following my time with in excess of 200 recent games this year, It's time to closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I feel content with the final results, even knowing a host of stellar titles likely fell under the radar. Now, there's nothing for me to do except relax, unplug a little, and possibly go for a refreshing hike in the— oh no, discovered one more brilliant title. So much for my intentions!

An Early Front-Runner Appears

With my casual gaming time, often set aside for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across what might become my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of high stakes risk and reward. Consider this a preview for the in-the-know: If you enjoy 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 Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I've ever played. The setup 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 results in some standard crawl progression. Pick a hero with their own attributes and skills, fight through each level of monsters, collect some permanent upgrades (in the form of teeth), and vanquish a few biome bosses. Easy to grasp!

The Novel Central System

The way you truly navigate a dungeon room, is unique. Whenever you enter a new floor, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. Every tile features a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To explore a room, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you select is a matter of probability.

You might see a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a quarter likelihood of landing on any given square in a row.

Then, you'll probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you opt on a different row first and aim for more cautious selections early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic at play in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing when you acquire an understanding of it.

Shaping the Odds

The procedural hook is that your odds can be manipulated during an attempt by picking up teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. As an instance, you might get a perk that will lower your chances of encountering a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of finding a treasure chest too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers optimally to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I focused my stat upgrades toward brute force 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 constructed my hero around reward boxes and combined that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes each time I secured loot.

The build options are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to work with to let you manipulate numbers according to your strategy.

A Constant Gamble

Naturally, it's still a game of chance. There's always the chance that you have a high probability to select the desired tile but ultimately choose a monster that would deplete your final hit point. All selections is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you navigate a level and determine if to press onward or to advance to the following level rather than risking it all.

Consumables including enemy-killing bombs assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some character abilities. An adventurer's special power, activated once clearing four squares, allows players to click on a column instead of a horizontal line during that action. If you play this move wisely, you can save that move for an optimal time to circumvent a perilous selection. There's a shocking amount of nuance in the basic action of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is currently in early access, and it has another update planned before the final game is unleashed. A new character and a fresh guardian are planned for release before the conclusion of January. The official version probably isn't far behind, but the creators haven't set a specific release window yet.

A Final Thought

Whenever the complete game arrives, you ought to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I've been positively obsessed with it, uncovering each of little secrets and storing my run rewards every session to access a constant flow of meta progression rewards, including fresh adventurers and items purchasable mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to reached the bottom, and I have a sense I will remain attempting that goal when 1.0 finally hits. I'm committed for the complete journey.