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Creative Pictures Studios

Space Filler

by Charlie Graham
Answer: 🏝️

This is a “paint the town” puzzle consisting of a list of clues.

Each of the clues consist of 2 components:

  • A town or city in Massachusetts
  • A word or phrase that is directly related to specifically one color (either before or after the phrase)

As an example, “Do something about parcels of land” refers to “Acton Acres” which would refer to the city “Acton” and “Green Acres”.

The clues are sorted first by color word. Also, if you group by each color, all of the cities and color words are both in alphabetical order.

To solve the puzzle, you need to identify all of the city/towns and color names, identify which color (all were either “blue”, “yellow”, “brown” or “green”) is most commonly associated with the word or phrase and then color (i.e. fill in) those cities on a Massachusetts City map.

Clue City Color Word Color
Do something about parcels of land (5 5) Acton Acres Green
A Jens Roth Film (6 6) Berlin Angels Blue
Missile created from an easter entree that spent too long in a wood fire (10 5) Ashburnham Arrow Green
The gut or midsection of an Alabama rival (6 5) Auburn Belly Yellow
Type of French hat worn by retired CIA assassin played by Mickey Rourke (5 5) Ashby Beret Green
Caulfield's nose showed this after his fight with Stradlater (6 5) Holden Blood Blue
Attach a blocked artery to someone (7 5 4) Grafton Brick Road Yellow
Bravo follower who heats up a lot of water to 100°c (8 7) Boylston Charlie Brown
2000 pounds of a fermentable dairy product is a relative of a key ingredient in another fermentable product (9 6) Hopkinton Cheese Blue
A crustacean that sounds like a star Chicago Cubs pitcher (9 4) Leicester Crab Blue
Annual holiday to celebrate the people who mow your lawn and trim your plants (7 3) Gardner Day Green
Culinary dish: hearty breakfast topped with a browned crust, using breadcrumbs, grated cheese, and butter (6 4 3 3) Groton Eggs And Ham Green
A large series of books that can answer pretty much any question about the 42nd president (7 12) Clinton Encyclopedia Brown
The excitement or frenzy from covering up a factory in dirt (8 5) Millbury Fever Yellow
Outerwear created in the Bronx (12 7) Northborough Jackets Yellow
Leno and Cutler as spokespeople for a brand of cigarettes (11 4) Marlborough Jays Blue
Battling Jack cooks the top half of the uniform of a right-winger and Golden Knight until it bubbles? (4 8 6) West Boylston Jersey Yellow
Portable light that weighs a new measurement which is definitely less than 2000 pounds (9 7) Littleton Lantern Green
Formal rules for handling tricks and contracts created by a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal (11 4) Northbridge Laws Blue
Show your naked rear end to someone while wearing a button-down dress shirt (6 4) Oxford Moon Blue
The front end (containing machine guns) of the most successful British bomber in World War II (9 4) Lancaster Nose Brown
How The Big Maple would introduce himself if he became a Manhattan cop (6 4) Paxton Nypd Blue
This West Wing and Parks and Recreation actor is definitely going to celebrate (6 5) Lowell Party Green
A lasting cessation of war from the marriage between a crescent shaped figure and an American Sports broadcaster (9 5) Lunenburg Peace Green
Paw impression left by an American gopher after it went to Mexico? (12 5) Southborough Print Blue
A contained space with walls that is home to a Temple (7 4) Shirley Room Green
Protective piece of silver (8 6) Sterling Shield Blue
Arm coverings in the style of the main actor in The Meteor Man (8 7) Townsend Sleeves Green
Batman actor temporarily takes a rock (11 5) Westborough Stone Yellow
A submersible named after a fermented condiment with all references to Middle Earth removed (9 9) Worcester Submarine Yellow
Captain Iijima's donkey-like first digit (12 5) Tyngsborough Thumb Green
Taste or liking of a famous bank robber with a law named after him (6 5) Sutton Tooth Blue
You can get your bachelors here to be a mortician for mole-like mammals (10 10) Shrewsbury University Brown
Heavy spending casino player after winning a lot of hands (5 5) Upton Whale Blue

You then need the aha to “paint the towns” and color the cities (or fill their spaces, a la the title) on a Massachusetts city map with the appropriate color. Once you color onto a map, you’ll see it looks like 🏝️, the desert island emoji, which is the answer:
county map colored in makes desert isle

The flavortext and title subtly nudge you to fill in the towns on a map with the appropriate colors. Early test-solvers kept using Google Map markers on the centers of the cities. If you did not love that answer, keep in mind it was actually pretty hard to find a way to clue people without giving away any of the ahas!