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After playing well over 200 new releases this year, I'm formally closing the book on 2025. My annual roundup is live, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, even knowing a host of excellent games likely fell by the wayside. Currently, my only job is to other than unwind, unplug a little, and perhaps take a pleasant stroll in the— oh no, discovered one more brilliant title. So much for my plans!

A Premature Contender Emerges

With my casual gaming time, usually reserved for a selection of unusual games, I've come across what could be my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of significant risk peril and prize. Take this as a hipster's insider tip: If you enjoy in knowing about a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your wallet for unique titles.

A Strategic Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I'm familiar with. The premise is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has gone missing from the fantasy world. When you play, that makes for some recognizable genre framework. Choose an adventurer possessing unique stats and abilities, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, collect some passive buffs (represented as teeth), and overcome a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

How you effectively complete a dungeon room, is unique. Each instance you start another stage, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces holds a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you select is up to chance.

You may face a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You initially will have a 25% chance of selecting a particular space in a row.

Subsequently, your odds shift. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you opt on a safer line first and aim for safer moves early? This is the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing when you acquire its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The meta-layer is that your probabilities can be influenced during an attempt by picking up teeth that change what things you're drawn toward. As an instance, you could acquire a perk that will reduce the probability of landing on a trap, but will also decrease the odds of finding a reward too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers to the utmost to have a higher chance at getting your desired outcome.
• In one run, I focused my attribute improvements toward brute force and picked as many teeth I could that would improve my probability of being drawn to monsters of that variety.
• During a separate session, I developed my adventurer around reward boxes and combined that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes each time I opened a chest.

The customization choices are limited, but it provides ample to work with to enable you to influence the odds according to your strategy.

A Persistent Tension

Naturally, it remains a game of chance. There remains the chance that you have an 80% chance to land on the desired tile but end up landing a foe that would take out your final hit point. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and determine if to continue selecting or to advance to the next floor instead of pushing your luck.

Tools such as destructive ordnance assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some hero powers. A particular character's signature move, powered up by clearing four squares, allows players to select a vertical line instead of a row on a turn. Should you use your cards right, you can hold that ability for an optimal time to avoid a risky decision. You'll find an astonishing degree of depth in the simple act of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is currently in development, and it has a final update scheduled until the complete edition is unleashed. Another playable adventurer and a additional end-level foe are scheduled to arrive before the conclusion of January. The official version probably isn't much later, but the studio haven't announced a final date yet.

A Parting Thought

No matter when the complete game arrives, you ought to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, discovering its little secrets and saving my accumulated currency per attempt to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, including fresh adventurers and items purchasable mid-attempt. I still haven't found the deepest level, and I suspect I'll still be attempting that goal when the official release drops. I'm committed for the long haul.