So, as I mentioned, there's some great ideas here, and I think if you expand the mechanic into something more broad you'd be on to a winner. :)
As I mentioned in the voice chat, I think the mechanic behind the original This House Has People In It website (which is sadly now gone), where there are a number of surveillance camera screens in a grid and you can pick a screen and see its video and hear its audio feed, and then when you go back to the grid all of the videos have progressed over the same timeframe, would serve this incredibly well.
I highly recommend watching the video linked above, and also Night Mind's breakdown of it. :)