Timelock or Optionlock? Success or Failure?

#1

Hey, everyone!

I’m writing a story where all of those involved within the story must achieve the goal before a certain time, however, although they ultimately fail at satisfying that goal within the allotted time they will continue trying to solve the goal, pursuing different approaches of reaching that goal as other timelocks are placed on them in succession until at last the goal is resolved.

Example:
A bomb will go off in a residential area at 5:00pm. The crew fails to reach the bomb in time, and
thereafter the crew leader receives an anonymous call where every 3 hours another bomb will go off. Throughout the remainder of the story they explore ways to find and stop the bombs from activating while pursuing the source of the threat.

Would you say this is a Timelock or Optionlock story? Success or Failure? It seems like the story is a Failure as a Timelock, yet a Success as an Optionlock.

#2

more info might be needed for your specific story, but in the example you give I’d say Optionlock where each option has an individual Timelock placed on it. The “mini-timelocks” for lack of a better phrasing are kind of like the Timelock in Zootopia where Judy Hopps is given 48 hours to solve Mr Otters case or whatever. It’s not a Timelock for the whole movie, just for that one part of it. In your example, I’d lean toward “protecting the area” as the goal and the options would be the various possible locations that can be bombed. Stopping whoever is setting off the bombs or otherwise stopping all the bombs from going off would be the solution, so Success or Failure would depend on if they did that or not. Several bombs can go off and still be considered a success.

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