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Having experienced in excess of 200 recent games this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My year-end list is live, and I am at peace with the ultimate rankings, accepting that a host of excellent games may have dropped by the wayside. Now, there's nothing for me to do except relax, disconnect briefly, and maybe enjoy a nice walk in the— ah crap, discovered one more amazing experience. So much for my intentions!

A Premature Contender Emerges

In my more laid-back sessions, typically earmarked for a few oddball curiosities, I've encountered what could be my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of significant risk danger and payoff. Consider this a hipster's insider tip: If you relish being aware of a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your indie credit card.

A Tactical Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's a departure from all I've ever played. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, going down level by level in search of the sun, which has disappeared from the fantasy world. Mechanically, that makes for some familiar roguelike structure. Pick a hero possessing unique stats and abilities, clear floor after floor of monsters, collect some passive buffs (which are teeth), and overcome a few area guardians. Simple enough!

The Distinctive Gameplay Loop

The method by which you truly navigate a chamber, though. Every time you start another stage, you see a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces features a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you end up on is determined by luck.

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

Subsequently, your odds shift. So do you go for it, or do you opt on a different row first and try to make safer moves early? This is the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating once you get its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The meta-layer is that your probabilities can be influenced through a run by collecting teeth that modify the types of squares you're more attracted to. For example, you may obtain a perk that will reduce the probability of encountering 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 higher chance at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I put all my attribute improvements toward melee prowess and chose every teeth possible that would boost my chances of landing on monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I constructed my hero around treasure chests and coupled it with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies every time I secured loot.

The build options are somewhat constrained, but it provides ample to experiment with to enable you to influence numbers according to your strategy.

A Persistent Tension

Naturally, it remains a game of chance. There's always the chance that you have an 80% chance to hit the preferred space but wind up hitting on an enemy that would deplete your remaining life. Every move is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you navigate a level and choose whether to press onward or to proceed to the next floor as opposed to testing fate.

Items like explosive devices assist in minimizing the chance, as do some special skills. One hero's signature move, charged after clearing four squares, lets gamers to choose a column in place of a horizontal row for that move. By employing this move wisely, you can hold that ability for the right moment to sidestep a dangerous choice. You'll find an astonishing degree of depth in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is still in early access, and it has at least one more update scheduled until the full version is released. An additional hero and a new boss are planned for release sometime in January. The full launch probably isn't long after, but the game's developers haven't set a concrete launch day yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

Whenever the complete game arrives, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, uncovering each of small details and banking my earned gold every session to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, including new characters and items purchasable while playing. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I suspect I'll still be pursuing that objective when 1.0 finally hits. Count me in for the long haul.