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Jotto

About Jotto
Category Price Seller Device
Games Free Catalyst Art iPhone, iPad, iPod

Jotto is based on a parlor game from the 1950's in which each person would think of a secret word and others would in turn make guesses. The person with the secret would then say how many letters in the guessed word were in the secret. By choosing different words players could identify or eliminate letters until they could guess the secret. Play would continue until only one person's word was unguessed. That person would be declared the winner.

In this version the computer has a secret you are trying to guess. Simply enter a word by selecting letters in the keypad and press (GO) to make your guess. If you mis-type a letter you can use the BACK key "<" to backup and re-enter a letter. You may also tap the letter position and enter the next letter. There is no time limit, or maximum number of guesses. The secret word is always a word without any repeated letters, such as QUIET, but not QUEEN which has two "E"s. All guess words must be proper English words.

If you enter many guesses, your list of guessed words will scroll, showing the most recent words at the top of the list. There are also options which you can set to make the game easier or more difficult. If a particular secret is giving you trouble, you can always press the (Give Up) button to end the current game, and try a different secret word.

Options - See the Info Screen

Unique Guesses - requires that guess words have no repeated letters. A guess such as QUIET is OK, but QUEEN is not because it has more than one "E". This makes the guessing more difficult.

Exact Match - requires you to figure out the correct word when the available letters could spell more than one word. For example, if you have the letters: A E K S T, you could spell STEAK, STAKE or SKATE. Only one of these is correct. If Exact Match is OFF, then if you enter any of these the game will give you credit for guessing the secret because you discovered all of the correct letters.

Computer Assist - enables the computer to help you guess by turning the letters on the keypad GREEN or RED to indicate whether a letter is known to be in the secret or not. Letters that have not been used will remain WHITE and letters guessed, but unable to be determined will be LIGHT BLUE. The computer is only allowed to consider information presented in the guess log. Disabling this feature means you have to figure out which letters to include or exclude all by yourself.

Sound Effects - enables playing sound effects for feedback on your progress while playing the game.

Automatic Go - enables the game to accept your guess immediately when you enter the last letter of the guess word instead of waiting until you have pressed the (GO) button. This feature helps speed up the game.

Maximum Guesses - requires the player to guess the secret within a maximum number of guesses.  If the word is not guessed by the maximum guess limit, the player loses and the secret is revealed.  A limit of 0 means there is no limit and the player has an unlimited number of guesses.  This is the default limit.  Setting a limit makes the game a little more challenging and encourages the player to choose guess words wisely.

Key Image - displays the current image for the alphabetical keys.  The game now comes with a set of additional light and dark keys from several models of manual typewriters.  The keys now also sound like typing on a typewriter.  Use the stepper next to the key image to cycle through the available keys.

Enjoy the Game and submit a rating after you have played it awhile.

Reviews

Great Brain Challenge
Baron Bishka

If you like word games you will appreciate the challenge that Jotto offers. Guessing words has never been this much fun.


Mrs
Mojo-mama

I played this game as a child with my mom, and it was my favorite. It was played with pencil and paper, and there was an alphabet that you could cross off or circle letters as you figured them out. The only problem back then was that the person who was telling you how many letters were in their word had to count correctly, otherwise, the logic would lead you to the wrong letter being identified as the correct one. I have really missed this game, and was delighted to find it in an app, but I am disappointed with it for the following reasons: The way the letters are counted does not let you add the multiples into the score (ie, if the word asked is "sassy" and the secret word has an S and a Y, the score would be 4, not 2. If the secret word had only an A, the score would be 1, and the player could mark out the S, and then begin figuring out which letter, either the A or Y, was the correct letter). This type of scoring lets the player make their own decisions about which letters are in the secret word, instead of the computer figuring it out for them. This is good brain exercise. I have had the computer actually mark out a letter before it was possible to ascertain by the word asked and the score given which letter was in the secret word. I enjoy the logic needed to find the correct letters and then unscramble them. But when the computer does all that for you, it seems more a matter of luck and just throwing enough words at it to find the correct letters. I really hope you will consider these changes, and make the game more about the players logical deductions. I'd like the computer to only give the correct count, and give the player the ability to mark off letters as they become known. Also, I like using words with multiple letters, but it does no good if the letter is only counted as 1 even though it appears in the word more than once. Its not as easy as it sounds to come up with words that have combinations of single and multiple letters in order to deduce the correct one, but that's part of the charm. Thank you for resurrecting this favorite game; I'd love to see it become even more fun and educational!


Wahoo!
Jkst.peter

I learned to play Jotto years ago and love playing. My husband hates playing though so we're both excited that I can play on the iPad to my heart's content now.


Thank you!!
theilleist

For finally giving iOS a real jotto game. That is also free. It's perfect except I docked half a star for not being able to turn the letters various colors manually when computer aid mode is off. I also docked half a star for not having a computer-guesses-the-player's-word option because I've wanted to see that for a long time, and no one seems to have it. All in all a wonderful app. Thank you!


Great game! (but... )
KryptoPower

Very addictive... but please design option to manually color letters without computer assistance for a bigger challenge (and 5 star rating)!


Best version of a classic game
Segalsegal

This does the bookkeeping of which letters are in or out, taking the tedium out of playing a great game. Some things are not tracked, however, such as excluding all other letters when you have 3 letter hits in one word and a non-overlapping 2 hits in another word.


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