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Following my time with in excess of 200 fresh titles this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the ultimate rankings, accepting that numerous fantastic releases likely fell through the cracks. Currently, my only plan is to except relax, unplug a little, and perhaps take a nice walk in the— oh no, stumbled upon a amazing experience. There go my peaceful respite!

A Surprising Contender Emerges

In my more off-hours play, often set aside for a selection of unusual games, I've come across what could be my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a conventional dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of significant risk risk and reward. View this a preview for the in-the-know: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it's popular, sample Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Calculated Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's different from everything I'm familiar with. The setup is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, descending floor after floor in search of the sun, which has vanished from the fantasy world. In practice, this results in some familiar roguelike structure. Select a character who has parameters and powers, clear floor after floor of foes, collect some permanent upgrades (which are teeth), and defeat a few stage-ending champions. Simple enough!

The Distinctive Core Mechanic

How you effectively complete a dungeon room, though. Each instance you start another stage, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square either contains a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the four rows, but which square you end up on is a matter of probability.

You might see a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You start with a one-in-four probability of selecting a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll probabilities change. So do you press your luck, or do you opt on a different row first and try to make less risky choices early? This is the tension between chance and safety on display in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating when you acquire an understanding of it.

Influencing Chance

The meta-layer is that your probabilities can be influenced through a run by collecting teeth that alter which objects you're drawn toward. For example, you may obtain a perk that will reduce the probability of encountering a trap, but will also decrease the odds of getting a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about manipulating math as best you can to have a better shot at landing where you want.
• In one run, I focused my stat upgrades toward brute force and chose every teeth I could that would improve my probability of attracting me toward monsters aligned with that strength.
• In another run, I developed my adventurer around treasure chests and paired that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes whenever I claimed a reward.

The build options are not endless, but it provides ample to engage with to let you manipulate the odds according to your strategy.

A Constant Tension

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. There's always the risk that you have a high probability to hit the square you want but ultimately choose on an enemy 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 press onward or when to move on to the following level instead of pushing your luck.

Consumables including enemy-killing bombs help cut down the chance, just like some special skills. An adventurer's signature move, charged after clearing four squares, lets gamers to choose a column rather than a horizontal row on a turn. By employing this move wisely, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to avoid a risky decision. There's a shocking level of strategy in the simple act of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is currently in development, and it has at least one more update planned until the full version is unleashed. An additional hero and a additional end-level foe are planned for release by the end of January. The full launch may not be far behind, but the game's developers haven't announced a specific release window yet.

A Parting Thought

Regardless of when it's fully released, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. For the past week, I've been completely engrossed with it, uncovering each of little secrets and storing my run rewards in each run to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, including new characters and items I can buy mid-attempt. I still haven't found the deepest level, and I have a sense I'll continue pursuing that objective when the official release drops. I'm committed for the long haul.