A cubic colored pyramid

Question

While preparing the next puzzle for publishing, I decided to encrypt the file to protect it, but something went wrong or maybe I entered the wrong command because the puzzle was encrypted, yes, but not the way I was expecting it to be! Instead of becoming an unaccessible file, it became another puzzle entirely!

However this gave me an idea, would you be able to solve it and understand what puzzle it used to be? What do the cubes mean?

Here's the "encrypted" puzzle, click to zoom.

                                       

Notes:

1. The parts relevant to the puzzle are the colors and the letters only.
2. The lines in the cube faces are there to identify the colors (for colorblind users). I'll provide a table with the colors and color names below, along with the patterns.
3. The numbers on each cube are there for you to make it easier to reference a puzzle, so you can say "the cube #33" instead of "the cube in the center but slightly to the right".
4. The "hidden" faces of the cubes are not part of the puzzle.

Colors used:

                  

Answer 1

I am able to solve it! The puzzle when decrypted is a:

Crossword Puzzle - Similar to this one

Each cube is:

Encoded in order top face, left face, right face. They are then ordered in row major order then left to right. The same order as the numbers in the image.

The key is:

Each letter refers to the index of the letter in the colour of the cube. So for Red A=r,B=e,C=d. Blacks indicate empty spaces.

This was discovered:

by noticing that all of the letters were small except for very few. The large letters were all assigned to the colours with longer names. Decoding the first few cubes from the top let me know I was on the right path.

After decrypting:

The puzzle needed to be arranged into a grid.

The original puzzle:.

colored_stupas_dpi
atlas_er_earlobe_n
m_arvicole_fuji_mt
eon_poe_ate_musca_
life_nitrogen_hinc
oland_victor_conto
tris_deceased_peru
_irate_hnl_cue_aap
pg_tail_isotopes_l
e_verglas_ne_istle
red_entity_decreet

(edit by OP) Here's the graphical solution: