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I've been meaning to explore new variations on the 3x3x3 cube for a while and I think I've come up with something new.

If we consider the rotation of a 2x2x2 block as one move, say the UFR block, and call it the z-move for lack of a better name. Now all sorts of weird stuff becomes possible, e.g. (z, C_U2)^6 will generate a 5-spot pattern! The centres cycle (U,L,R,B,F) in befuddler notation.

So in this particular universe of the 3x3x3 cube we are considering 8 corner moves which move a 2x2x2 block rather than the usual 6 face moves. I won't spoil all the fun, but a 3-spot, 4-spot and 6-spot are possible and these spots patterns are quite different from what is possible in the 'normal' universe of the cube.