🔗 Share this article

Following my time with more than 200 fresh titles this year, It's time to closing the book on 2025. My annual roundup is live, and I feel content with the ultimate rankings, despite being aware numerous stellar titles likely fell under the radar. Now, there's nothing for me to do except relax, disconnect briefly, and possibly go for a pleasant stroll in the— well, shoot, found another amazing experience. So much for my peaceful respite!

A Premature Front-Runner Appears

With my laid-back sessions, usually reserved for a selection of unusual games, I've encountered potentially my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive roguelike for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of significant risk danger and payoff. View this an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride discovering a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Tactical Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's unlike anything I'm familiar with. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper on a quest for the sun, which has gone missing from its world. Mechanically, this results in some standard crawl progression. Select a character with their own parameters and powers, clear floor after floor of enemies, pick up some permanent upgrades (which are teeth), and overcome a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!

The Novel Gameplay Loop

How you truly navigate a chamber, however. Every time you begin a fresh level, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To make a move, you choose on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you land in is determined by luck.

You might see a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You initially will have a 25% chance of hitting a specific tile in a row.

Subsequently, your chances are recalculated. So do you press your luck, or do you choose on a safer line first and try to make safer moves early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay at play in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating after you develop an understanding of it.

Manipulating Probability

The procedural hook is that your odds can be manipulated through a run by collecting teeth that modify the types of squares you're drawn toward. As an instance, you could acquire a perk that will reduce the probability of encountering a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Creating a build is about tweaking the numbers optimally to have a improved likelihood at selecting the optimal square.
• On a particular session, I put all my stat upgrades toward physical attack/defense 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 built my character around treasure chests and coupled it with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I secured loot.

The build options are somewhat constrained, but it provides ample to engage with to enable you to influence the odds to your preference.

An Ever-Present Tension

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have an 80% chance to land on the preferred space but end up landing a monster that would take out your remaining life. Every move is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you navigate a level and decide when to press onward or to proceed to the next floor rather than risking it all.

Consumables including explosive devices aid in reducing the chance, just like some hero powers. One hero's special power, activated once selecting four tiles, enables you to select a vertical column rather than a row during that action. If you play this move wisely, you can reserve that option for an optimal time to sidestep a dangerous choice. It's a surprising degree of depth in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is remaining in development, and it has another update planned until the final game is launched. A new character and a additional end-level foe are expected to drop by the end of January. The official version may not be far behind, but the game's developers haven't committed to a concrete launch day yet.

A Parting Thought

Whenever the complete game arrives, you might want to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, finding all of small details and saving my accumulated currency per attempt to unlock a steady stream of persistent upgrades, featuring new characters and items I can buy during a run. As of now, I am yet to found the deepest level, and I get the feeling I will remain attempting that goal when the official release drops. Sign me up for the long haul.