Mrs – Jotto Review

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!
Review by Mojo-mama on Jotto.