page_title: Typewriter mystery game
section_title: Photos
hierarchical_section_title: Typewriter mystery game / Photos
caption_attribution_description: English: A typewriter mystery game in the process of being typed in
context_page_description: A typewriter mystery game was a specific type of typewriter art popular in the mid-20th century.
  A typewriter owner would be presented with a set of instructions: press a key this many times, press another key, move on to the next line. Upon finishing the typing, a picture would emerge on the page. First lines of a simple typewriter mystery could look like this:
  [1] 36 spaces, 4 X
  [2] 31 spaces, 20 X
  [3] 27 spaces, 32 X
  [4] 23 spaces, 43 X, 2 spaces, 5 X
  Typewriter mystery games were published in magazines, and collected in separate books. The “mystery” in the name refers to the fact that a visual result of the instructions would sometimes be presented on a different page, in the following issue of the magazine, or withheld altogether, making typing the only immediate way to discover the picture.
  The end result of a typewriter mystery game would be a picture similar to the later ASCII art, except it would often use overtyping – making several passes over the same line, unavailable or difficult on computer screens. The photo would often be a portrait of a person or an animal.
caption: A typewriter mystery game in the process of being typed in
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