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Following my time with more than 200 recent games this year, It's time to wrapping things up on 2025. My year-end list is published, and I feel content with the final results, accepting that numerous fantastic releases probably slipped under the radar. Now, there's nothing for me to do but sit back, unplug a little, and perhaps take a nice walk in the— ah crap, discovered one more amazing experience. And just like that, goodbye to my plans!

An Early Front-Runner Appears

With my casual gaming time, often set aside for a few oddball curiosities, I've encountered potentially my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar roguelike for Windows PC that breaks down a classic labyrinth explorer into a luck-based game of high stakes risk and reward. Consider this a hipster's insider tip: If you relish being aware of a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your gaming budget.

A Tactical Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I've ever played. The premise is that you must venture into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper to find the sun, which has gone missing from the fantasy world. Mechanically, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Select a character with their own parameters and powers, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, acquire some stat improvements (which are teeth), and defeat a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!

The Novel Core Mechanic

The method by which you effectively complete a dungeon room, though. Every time you enter a new floor, you're shown a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square either contains a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you simply click on one of the four rows, but which square you end up on is determined by luck.

You may face a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You start with a 25% chance of landing on a specific tile in a row.

Then, you'll odds shift. The question becomes: Do you press your luck, or do you click on a different row first and aim for less risky choices early? Herein lies the push-your-luck gameplay on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing when you acquire its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The procedural hook is that your probabilities can be influenced over the course of a session by picking up teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. For example, you may obtain a perk that will reduce the probability of landing on a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of getting a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers as best you can to have a better shot at selecting the optimal square.
• In one run, I put all my power boosts toward physical attack/defense and picked as many teeth I could that would increase my odds of attracting me toward monsters with that damage type.
• On a different attempt, I built my character around loot caches 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 work with to allow you to tweak probabilities the way you want.

A Persistent Risk

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have an 80% chance to land on the square you want but end up landing a monster that would eliminate your final hit point. All selections is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you work through a stage and decide when to continue selecting or when to move on to the next floor instead of risking it all.

Tools such as destructive ordnance aid in reducing the chance, as do some special skills. One hero's unique ability, powered up by selecting four tiles, allows players to click on a vertical column in place of a horizontal line on a turn. By employing your cards right, you can reserve that option for an optimal time to circumvent a perilous selection. You'll find an astonishing level of strategy in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has a final update to go until the full version is released. An additional hero and a fresh guardian are scheduled to arrive sometime in January. The official version likely won't be much later, but the studio haven't set a specific release window yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

Whenever the complete game arrives, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your radar. I've been thoroughly captivated with it, uncovering each of hidden nuances and saving my accumulated currency every session to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, featuring additional heroes and items purchasable mid-attempt. To this day, I have not reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I'll still be attempting that goal when 1.0 finally hits. Sign me up for the entire experience.