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Following my time with well over 200 new releases this year, I am officially closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is live, and I feel content with the ultimate rankings, even knowing a host of excellent games may have dropped under the radar. Currently, my only plan is to other than unwind, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— well, shoot, discovered one more amazing experience. There go my peaceful respite!

A Premature Favorite Surfaces

In my more off-hours play, usually reserved for a few oddball curiosities, I've encountered what might become my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a classic labyrinth explorer into a probability-fueled game of high stakes danger and payoff. Take this as an early adopter's heads-up: If you relish discovering a game before it's cool, test out Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Calculated Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's unlike anything I'm familiar with. The concept is that you must venture into a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has gone missing from its world. In practice, this creates some recognizable genre framework. Select a character who has attributes and skills, fight through each level of foes, collect some permanent upgrades (in the form of teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!

The Novel Central System

How you truly navigate a dungeon room, though. Every time you enter a new floor, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you choose on one of the horizontal lines, but the specific tile 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 start with a quarter likelihood of hitting any given square in a row.

After that, the chances are recalculated. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you choose on a alternative option first and aim for safer moves early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get its rhythm.

Shaping the Odds

The procedural hook is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by picking up teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. For example, you might get a perk that will reduce the probability of encountering a trap, but will also decrease the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a higher chance at getting your desired outcome.
• During one attempt, I invested my attribute improvements toward brute force and selected all the teeth I could that would boost my chances of being drawn to monsters of that variety.
• During a separate session, I developed my adventurer around loot caches and coupled it with a perk that would debuff nearby foes each time I secured loot.

The strategic possibilities are limited, but there's enough to work with to enable you to influence numbers the way you want.

A Constant Risk

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have a high probability to hit the desired tile but end up landing on an enemy that would deplete your remaining life. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you clear a floor out and choose whether to keep clicking or when to move on to the following level rather than risking it all.

Consumables including explosive devices aid in reducing the chance, similar to some special skills. An adventurer's special power, activated once clearing four squares, allows players to click on a vertical line in place of a horizontal line on a turn. Should you use your cards right, you can reserve that option for the right moment to sidestep a dangerous choice. It's a surprising degree of depth in the simple act of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in development, and it has a final update scheduled until the full version is launched. A new character and a additional end-level foe are planned for release sometime in January. The full launch may not be far behind, but the game's developers haven't set a specific release window yet.

A Final Thought

Regardless of when the complete game arrives, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. For the past week, I've been completely engrossed with it, uncovering each of small details and saving my accumulated currency every session to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, such as additional heroes and items available for acquisition mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to found the deepest level, and I have a sense I'll still be working on that task when the full version launches. Count me in for the long haul.