"Fun puzzles connected by an Ancient Civilization theme."

I noticed there were no other reviews for this game, so I thought I'd contribute. JOTO is one of many titles in the Dreamcatcher/Cryo archieve of adventure titles. Basically, it is a point-and-click first person game - what it really consists of is a hub in the form of a magic well - you touch any of 24 stones and open a portal to a room with a logic puzzle in it. Graphics are of the still photo-realistic tyoe, with a few brief animations leading you from one room to the next, and that's about it. But, this game is really about the puzzles. They range from easy to difficult - with a few that prove quite puzzling indeed (there is one set of rooms that are primarily math logic puzzles that I hardly even attempted!) The neat thing is that you can take the puzzles in any order. If you get stuck on one, you can come back to it later. You do not have to solve one to get to another - from the start all 24 rooms are available. The music which accompanies the game changes in each room, and does well at establishing mood. Some of them are actually quite catchy.

There is a triangular icon above the screen that you can click for clues in each room - you can also set the animations to "off" which helps you move around much more quickly. And, you can alternate between easy and hard puzzle modes. Some puzzles are unaffected by the change, others you almost HAVE to set to easy if you want to get through them.

One thing to note - the hub room can be a bit confusing since the view from each position looks mostly the same. I would highly recommend avoiding buying a copy that is missing the manual - the manual has a map of the different hub levels and is vital to helping you keep up with which rooms you've already solved. Also, keep an eye out from room to room for one of five hidden shards - there is on in each "house" - which you will need to solve one of the last puzzle rooms.
And that's about it. This is a good game if you find it for $5 or less - it is old so it won't blow you away. But if you like these kind of games, I think you'll find it appealing. I rated the game at an 8 based on the genre of game and also accounting for the age of it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/17/04