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Following my time with in excess of 200 new releases this year, I'm formally wrapping things up on 2025. My year-end list is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the ultimate rankings, despite being aware a host of stellar titles likely fell under the radar. Now, there's plan is to except relax, unplug a little, and maybe enjoy a refreshing hike in the— ah crap, discovered one more brilliant title. So much for my plans!

An Early Favorite Surfaces

During my off-hours play, often set aside for a handful of quirky titles, I've encountered potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that breaks down a conventional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of high stakes peril and prize. Take this as a preview for the in-the-know: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's different from everything I've ever played. The concept is that you need to explore a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has gone missing from this mythical realm. Mechanically, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero possessing unique attributes and skills, fight through each level of foes, collect some stat improvements (which are teeth), and overcome a few biome bosses. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

How you truly navigate a dungeon room, however. Whenever you start another stage, the game presents a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces features a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you select is a matter of probability.

You might see a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You initially will have a quarter likelihood of selecting any given square in a row.

Then, you'll odds shift. The question becomes: Do you take the risk, or do you click on a different row first and aim for more cautious selections early? This is the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating when you acquire its rhythm.

Shaping the Odds

The procedural hook is that your probabilities can be influenced during an attempt by gathering teeth that modify the types of squares you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you could acquire a perk that will reduce the probability of hitting a trap, but will also decrease the odds of getting a reward too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• During one attempt, I invested my attribute improvements toward physical attack/defense and chose every teeth possible that would improve my probability of landing on monsters of that variety.
• During a separate session, I constructed my hero around reward boxes and paired that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I secured loot.

The build options are limited, but it provides ample to work with to allow you to tweak probabilities to your preference.

An Ever-Present Risk

Naturally, it remains a game of chance. There remains the chance that you have a likely outcome to hit the square you want but wind up hitting a monster that would take out your remaining life. All selections is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you work through a stage and decide when to continue selecting or to advance to the next floor as opposed to risking it all.

Consumables including explosive devices aid in reducing the chance, similar to some special skills. A particular character's signature move, charged after selecting four tiles, allows players to select a vertical column rather than a horizontal row during that action. Should you use your cards right, you can save that move for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising level of strategy in the basic action of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has a final update to go until the final game is unleashed. An additional hero and a fresh guardian are expected to drop by the end of January. The official version may not be long after, but the creators haven't set a final date yet.

A Concluding Thought

Whenever it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your radar. I've been completely engrossed with it, discovering its hidden nuances and banking my earned gold every session to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, such as new characters and items I can buy mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I have a sense I will remain working on that task when 1.0 finally hits. Count me in for the long haul.