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Following my time with more than 200 new releases this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My year-end list is live, and I feel content with the final results, accepting that a host of stellar titles probably slipped by the wayside. Now, there's plan is to except relax, unplug a little, and maybe enjoy a refreshing hike in the— oh no, stumbled upon a amazing experience. So much for my intentions!

A Surprising Front-Runner Appears

During my off-hours play, often set aside for a few oddball curiosities, I've come across what might become my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of major consequence risk and reward. View this an early adopter's heads-up: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it hits the mainstream, give Sol Cesto a try so you can punch a hole in your gaming budget.

A Calculated Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's different from everything I'm familiar with. The concept is that you need to explore a dungeon, descending floor after floor in search of the sun, which has disappeared from its world. In practice, this creates some familiar roguelike structure. Pick a hero who has parameters and powers, fight through each level of monsters, pick up some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!

The Distinctive Central System

The method by which you actually clear a area, is unique. Each instance you enter a new floor, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To proceed, you choose on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you end up on is up to chance.

You may face a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You initially will have a 25% chance of landing on a specific tile in a row.

Subsequently, your probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you opt on a safer line first and attempt some more cautious selections early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay in action in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get an understanding of it.

Manipulating Probability

The roguelike twist is that your probabilities can be influenced through a run by gathering teeth that modify the types of squares you're more likely to land on. For example, you may obtain a perk that will lower your chances of landing on a trap, but will also decrease the odds of landing on a reward too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers optimally to have a better shot at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I put all my power boosts toward brute force and picked as many teeth possible that would increase my odds of landing on monsters aligned with that strength.
• During a separate session, I developed my adventurer around reward boxes and paired that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes every time I opened a chest.

The strategic possibilities are limited, but it provides ample to experiment with to enable you to influence probabilities according to your strategy.

A Constant Risk

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. You constantly face the chance that you have an 80% chance to hit the preferred space but ultimately choose a monster that would eliminate your last bit of health. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you clear a floor out and decide when to continue selecting or when to move on to the following level instead of pushing your luck.

Consumables including enemy-killing bombs help cut down the chance, as do some hero powers. A particular character's special power, activated once clearing four squares, allows players to choose a vertical line in place of a row on a turn. By employing your cards right, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to sidestep a dangerous choice. There's a shocking degree of depth in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has another update to go until the complete edition is unleashed. An additional hero and a new boss are expected to drop before the conclusion of January. The 1.0 release likely won't be long after, but the studio haven't committed to a final date yet.

A Parting Recommendation

Regardless of when it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your radar. I've been completely engrossed with it, discovering its little secrets and storing my run rewards per attempt to unlock a steady stream of persistent upgrades, including fresh adventurers and items I can buy mid-attempt. To this day, I have not reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I will remain working on that task when the full version launches. Count me in for the entire experience.