Jotto Variants

There are numerous possible variations of Jotto, here are a few of the most common ones:

No Duplicates

For an easier game, neither the target nor guess words are allowed to contain duplicate letters.

No Anagrams

Some people like the added complexity of anagrams others dislike the fact that even once you've found all five letters it is simply trial and error to determine the correct order. Therefore some people prefer to remove this element by saying that any score of "five" is a win regardless of whether the target word or an anagram of it has been found.

Less / More Letters

Using only four letter words makes Jotto simpler, six letter words are more complex. Some people apparently play a version where target and guesses can be any length between three and eight letters!

Exact Match Only

In standard Jotto, a letter is considered to match even if it is in the wrong position. The game can be made far more complex by only marking a hit when the letters are in exactly the right position. Thus a target word "GAMES" and a guess of "SALTY" word score only one (for the "A") rather than two (for the "S" and "A"). In this version a score of zero does not mean that none of the letters in the guess appear in the target.