Jotto Ii

Jotto is a 1993 Macintosh adaptation of the classic paper-and-pencil word-guessing game, written by Mark Pilgrim. The Macintosh Garden notes describe it as somewhat difficult to learn but enjoyable once figured out: players try to deduce a hidden target word by submitting guesses and reading clues about how many letters they share with the answer.

Gameplay

Each turn the player submits a candidate word and is told how many of its letters also appear in the secret word, without revealing positions. Through repeated guesses and logical elimination, players narrow down the answer.

Strategy

Strong play depends on choosing early guesses with high information value, then mining the letter-overlap counts to rule entire classes of words in or out. The puzzle rewards patient bookkeeping and a good vocabulary.

Author

The game is credited to Mark Pilgrim and was distributed as shareware for early-1990s Macintosh systems, fitting alongside the era's other word-puzzle hobby releases.