Cancelled project #1 'puzzle timeloop'

This was part of a game jam I never completed. The theme was time-loop and so I figured I'd go with the cliche good old 'time-loop puzzle'  

I needed to make it stand out so not only did I want the visuals to be something unexpected, almost what you'd see in a horror kind of game but I then also figured what if you could use the lantern that the player can pick up not only as a means of lighting up your environment but also when using a given input would move the lantern in the centre of the screen and when the player looks through the glass of the lantern it'll reveal hidden secrets around the room, ranging from text, images and numbers which then lets them solve the puzzles

Next aspect was making the time loop make sense and at this point I really got stuck and is the main aspect on why I couldn't finish the jam, it was a pain figuring out something that  could not only be fun but engaging without it feeling like a forced mechanics and so for the time loop I only ever got as far as making a little stop watch that ticks down and once it hits zero a sound queue would play, camera would shake and screen fade to white, restarting the scene for the player to try again.

Although with it working like that it's just a fancy way of calling it a 'death screen' and was in no way engaging or mechanically interesting for the player.