This edition covers:

1. 2024 World Championship
2. 2024 RPM Trophy
3. Deadline
4. Judging
5. Help
6. November Extra puzzle
7. Advice from the Editor: What makes a good 3D puzzle?

It’s that time of year again when 3D super solvers get the chance to become distinguished designers and cracking clue writers. Our annual competitions are not only a fun challenge, but also a rich source of grids for future 3D Crossword Calendars. Past calendars have featured excellent grids from previous competition winners and the newly released 2025 calendar showcases the talents of some of our 2023 entrants. We are now on the hunt for suitable puzzles for 2026 and beyond.

There are two competitions to enter, the details for which are below, along with helpful advice from the Crossword Editor. Follow the links in the Help section to get more detailed guidance on grid design and to download the templates to submit your entry.

Qualification: you must have successfully solved 12 puzzles during 2024. When you submit your monthly puzzle entry, your acknowledgement email will contain your progress status. There is also a “check your progress” link on our Puzzles Page. Solving the November Extra will give you an extra boost towards getting the required 12. 

Your tasks will be:

1. To solve the November Extra crossword puzzle.
2. To create a 3D grid with a theme suitable for our 2026 calendar, i.e. the year after next. This can be an anniversary related theme appropriate to a specific month or a non-anniversary related theme which can appear in any month.
3. To write clues for the following two words:
   • CRIB
   • TRIUMPHANT

N.B. Each entrant may only submit one grid and one set of clues.

There are no qualifications required for this challenge and everyone is encouraged to enter, although World Championship entrants must submit a separate grid for that competition.

Your task is to create a 3D grid with a theme suitable for our 2026 calendar, i.e. the year after next. This can be an anniversary related theme appropriate to a specific month or a non-anniversary related theme which can appear in any month. All grids submitted will be considered both for the competition and for publication.

You can submit as many grids as you wish for this competition.

The submission deadline for both competitions is 15 January 2025.

In all aspects of each competition (clues, grids and word lists), entries will be anonymised before being sent to the judges. Make sure you only send your entries to the address specified in the word table template.

3D Grid Design Guide is for guidance but nothing is cast in stone. 

3D Grid Templates (PDF), including several varieties of cubic grids, seven dials, torus and sphere for you to use and adapt as you see fit. Or you could create your own new grid format.

Word Table Template (.docx) for you to submit the information about you and your grid, and the list of words in the completed puzzle. Please return in the same format (i.e. Word, or we will also accept Open Office or Google Docs, but not as PDF please). The word table template also contains the information for where to send your entry.

3D Exemplar Grid and Word Table (PDF) is an example of a final submission.

The November Extra Puzzle and entry form can be found on the 2024 puzzles page on our website.

This Extra puzzle is open to all, whether or not you are planning on entering the World Championship. The name of a successful solver will be drawn from the hat to receive a small prize, as usual.

The deadline for the November Extra is 15 January 2025.

You are wondering if you could design and fill that grid which will earn you the World Championship or RPM Trophy. You know what you enjoy in cryptic puzzles, and our 3D creations in particular: what must you do to make your submission prize-worthy?

Firstly, do you have a theme in mind, or a significant anniversary? We like those, as you may have noticed. Try to choose a theme or an event which will make people smile and which they will enjoy seeing commemorated on their kitchen wall or their desktop. Contemporary wars, recent disasters and the problems which face us may not have that effect!

We get a lot of designs relating to literary anniversaries (understandably — you love words). There are some stonking candidates for 2026. But in case the market gets flooded — and at least one is taken already — how about an unusual anniversary, or a different theme altogether? I look forward to publishing the first 3D puzzle on wrestling, stamp-collecting or table tennis.

Secondly, can you find a shape for your grid which will both fit the theme and be practical to print on a 2D page? Cuboids, cylinders and pyramids all work well; but have you got a totally new idea? All we ask is that there be sufficient crossers to help the solver, as in a 2D puzzle, and that it be comprehensible!

Word selection is a third consideration. A high proportion of truly thematic items always looks impressive. Can you find ingenious ways of linking your entries? Will your grid lend itself to a “special” treatment, with letters omitted or added, or a long anagram to find, for example? Most entries should be words in common use, but a small proportion which are specialised vocabulary, archaisms, slang or accessible foreign words will add spice and may provide a treasure-hunt element for those who like such things.

What about elegance? There is something very satisfying about a neat grid in which every word is of five, seven or nine letters and there are no “snakes” or bars. However, longer phrases draped around the framework like multi-coloured tinsel on the tree have their own attraction. If you are including “Easter Eggs”, think how to present them in a satisfying way. We probably prefer neat transformations, symmetrical patterns and thematic groupings of letters rather than random jumbles. And what about using the intermediate layers of a cuboid, or some other inventive alignment, to hide your message?

Finally, please remember that the publication is a calendar, and that each page is of A4 dimensions. A massive puzzle of 50-plus entries is difficult to fit in; a small one with fewer than 28 clues may leave the solvers feeling short-changed even in February. 

Seeing the new ideas and designs come in is a high spot of my year, a bit like when the bulbs pierce the mulch in January with their promise of future beauty. Go on: amaze us!

AGC / Komorník - November 2024

P.S. We may already have the puzzles we need for August, October, November and December 2026, so you may wish to choose other months when submitting a grid for the World Championship or RPM Trophy (grid only) competition.

3D Calendar Puzzles
3dcalendarpuzzles.co.uk