DaYan's Bermuda Cubes (and Shape Variants)

DaYan's Bermuda series of puzzles, named after the eight major planets, is imaginative and challenging. Availability here in the UK is somewhat limited. I started with the simplest, Mercury; it was my intention to work my way out into the Solar System. Unfortunately, I was unable to find Venus for sale here so I moved onto to Earth. It was then that I found the full set for sale in Hong Kong for a reasonable price. So I ended up with two spares, one of which became a Christmas present.

The Bermuda puzzles are a mixture of normal pieces and ones that work as if they were on a Fisher cube. Each puzzle has one to four Bermuda faces. There are two possible configurations, two Fisher sections...

...or one...

The Fisher sections mean that it is necessary to make a semi- or sesqui-turn in some cases, i.e. ½ or 1½ turns, to be able to turn a particular face.

The cubes have different numbers of Bermuda faces and in some cases different configurations. Mercury has one Bermuda face. Venus and Earth have two. Mars, Jupiter and, bizarrely, Neptune have three. Saturn and Uranus have four. In addition, there are two house-shaped puzzles: red and green; the barrel and the star.

The "Grand Tour": A Journey through the Solar System

I started at Mercury and my intention was to work my way outwards through the "Solar System", in sequence. My plan was scuppered when I could not find Venus for sale here in the UK so I skipped ahead to Earth. I went back to Venus when I saw the full set for sale in Hong Kong for a reasonable price. After detouring back to Venus, my grand tour resumed at Mars.

Solutions, for most of the cubes, follow a similar route. Solve a Petrus-like block, leaving two adjacent faces that can be turned freely. Orientate all of the pieces that behave like edges. Extended the solved block and finally complete the final, top layer. Each cube offers a unique challenge; while the basic route is the same for most of them the detail is different in each case. Knowledge of one cube does not guarantee an easy solve on another one.

I have written individual posts about each puzzle and described the route I took to solve each one, without sharing any of the algorithms I used to complete the solves: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Shape Variants

As well as the eight planets there are four other puzzles, taking the full range count up to twelve. They are House I, House II, Barrel and Star. Each of these puzzles only has one Bermuda face, therefore, in principle, the solution is not dissimilar from Mercury's.

Bermuda Barrel Puzzle

TomZ Constrained Cubes

Calvin's puzzles made three puzzles in its constrained cube series, Ultimate, 180 and 90. These puzzles varied in how the faces on the puzzles were limited. Ultimate is the easiest to solve and 90 is the most difficult.