Cedar Point today teased that they're going to announce something about replacing Top Thrill Dragster in August. (See <https://www.wkyc.com/article/entertainment/places/cedar-point/cedar-point-2024-announcement-top-thrill-dragster-roller-coaster-august-1/95-00240a68-f00c-41c4-84f9-016efb1240f2>).
The type face used in the announcement has a lot of people thinking there's a 3 hidden inside the 08 of the month. And the announcement says to 'Get Revvved Up', with three V's, and roller coaster forums are trying to figure out what these threes mean.
We #pinball hands understand: *this roller coaster has a Secret Mania!*
@Austin_Dern @Felthry I believe that it's because 3 balls per play, and most multi-balls, at the time, happened on the 3rd locked ball.
@Felthry So, a pinball 'mania' or 'frenzy' is a time-limited mode, usually something like 30 seconds, where every target in the game is worth some flat but large number of points. It's always fun to hit.
A 'Secret Mania' is a twist on this popular in 90s games made by Williams, which was then *the* top pinball maker.
In this, the game would be starting some *other* mode, but there'd be a clue on the display screen --- usually the appearance of 3's. This was a clue that if you hit the flipper three times, you'd start a frenzy.
It's secret in that there's nothing in the rule card or on-screen instructions to tell you about it; you have to discover it by accident or learn from other players. And there's no getting it on purpose; it's up to the game's randomizer to give you the chance at the secret mania.
I don't know that anyone knows why 3 is the secret number. Probably because by the 90s the default pinball game was three balls, and the default multiball was three balls, so three just looked like the pinball number.