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Following my time with well over 200 fresh titles this year, I'm formally wrapping things up on 2025. My annual roundup is published, and I'm satisfied with the ultimate rankings, despite being aware a host of excellent games likely fell by the wayside. Now, there's plan is to other than unwind, disconnect briefly, and perhaps take a nice walk in the— oh no, found another great game. So much for my plans!

A Premature Contender Emerges

During my casual gaming time, usually reserved for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across what could be my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a classic labyrinth explorer into a probability-fueled game of significant risk peril and prize. View this a hipster's insider tip: If you take pride discovering a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your gaming budget.

A Strategic Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's unlike anything I'm familiar with. The setup is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has gone missing from the fantasy world. When you play, this creates some familiar roguelike structure. Choose an adventurer possessing unique attributes and skills, defeat enemies on every stage of foes, acquire some stat improvements (in the form of teeth), and defeat a few area guardians. Easy to grasp!

The Novel Central System

The way you actually clear a dungeon room, is unique. Whenever you begin a fresh level, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. All spaces either contains a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you end up on is up to chance.

You might see a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a quarter likelihood of landing on a specific tile in a row.

Then, you'll probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you take the risk, or do you opt on a alternative option first and attempt some safer moves early? This is the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get a feel for it.

Shaping the Odds

The procedural hook is that your probabilities can be influenced during an attempt by picking up teeth that modify the types of squares you're more attracted to. As an instance, you might get a perk that will lower your chances of hitting a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Creating a build is about influencing the statistics as best you can to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I invested my attribute improvements toward brute force and chose every teeth possible that would boost my chances of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength.
• In another run, I built my character around reward boxes and combined that with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies each time I opened a chest.

The customization choices are limited, but they are sufficient to engage with to allow you to tweak probabilities to your preference.

A Persistent Gamble

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have a likely outcome to select the square you want but ultimately choose a monster that would deplete your last bit of health. Every move is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you navigate a level and decide when to keep clicking or to advance to the next floor as opposed to testing fate.

Tools such as enemy-killing bombs help cut down the chance, as do some hero powers. An adventurer's unique ability, powered up by making four moves, enables you to choose a vertical column rather than a horizontal line on a turn. If you play your cards right, you can hold that ability for an optimal time to sidestep a dangerous choice. There's a shocking amount of nuance in the basic action of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is remaining in its preview phase, and it has at least one more update scheduled before the final game is launched. An additional hero and a fresh guardian are planned for release before the conclusion of January. The 1.0 release probably isn't far behind, but the creators haven't announced a concrete launch day yet.

A Parting Thought

Regardless of when the complete game arrives, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, discovering its little secrets and banking my earned gold per attempt to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, including new characters and items available for acquisition while playing. To this day, I have not found the deepest level, and I suspect I will remain working on that task when the official release drops. Sign me up for the long haul.