3 In Line

The 3 In Line, manufactured by Scientific Machine Corporation of Brooklyn, New York in May 1950, is an electro-mechanical rolldown game built around a tic-tac-toe theme. Rather than traditional flipper play, it uses a rolldown format in which players guide balls into a grid-like arrangement of trap holes, echoing the mechanics of the familiar pencil-and-paper game.

Each game gives the player 5 balls, and the playfield features 18 trap holes arranged to support the tic-tac-toe scoring concept. This combination of a recognizable game theme with rolldown mechanics gave players a distinct objective beyond simple point accumulation.

Like many rolldown games of its era, 3 In Line used mechanical components such as levers, switches, and electromagnetic relays typical of electro-mechanical design. No designer is credited in available records, and detailed information about the machine's specific rules or reception has not survived, which is typical for lesser-known games of this period.