#sindec

The "rushed" part is pretty simple, she was only added into the game maybe 2 weeks before we privately distributed the final playtest build of the game. The entire story had been set in stone at this point, and we were basically just waiting on cutscene art to be finished. Couple that with us putting a strict deadline on ourselves to release the game, and we basically had no time to include her in a more meaningful way.

The "not well thought out" part though... to give a little context, Delilah existed as an OC of mine for at least a year before she was added, and she was already known as that in close friend circles at the time (these circles were also the playtesters).

So one night, while we were all grinding out the last few parts in a call, we got to talking about Delilah and how she'd fit in SinDec's setting and thought it was really cool, and decided to include her in the church as a cameo character. SinDec had a few cameo characters already, so we figured one more wouldn't hurt. We were dead set on releasing SinDec at a certain time, so we just added a map with her in it, and edited Adam's baby picture to include her, and when playtesting began everyone playing seemed happy to see her be included.

People playing the final release did NOT have this context though, and honestly I don't know why we never thought about this, especially with how much lore relevant dialogue I'd written for her because I was suffering from Chronic Delilah Brainrot (and still kinda am).

You can kinda see the contradiction right? Adding in an OC with as much agency and presence as an easter egg, while also overloading her with exposition that makes her feel like she is or will be important, despite never really doing anything. Even during the slaughter of the church she remains untouched, despite her room being easily accessible.

She also doesn't show up in Zaphkiel's ending, where she would be most relevant.

Either way, she was loved by people a lot so she stayed in until much much later when I finally got off my ass and patched some major bugs for 1.1.3, among other things Dismal requested (I was left in charge of maintaining the game in his stead). I'd given SinDec's story a lot of thought by then, including Delilah, and felt her presence somewhat harmed the story in both a continuity sense, and a character sense. To list off a few things

Adam and Delilah are implied to have grown up together, which I find contradictory to Adam's character. If he had anyone to grow up and relate with, I don't think he would've become the man we see.

She also has no presence in the Industry's lab outside of the photo. She couldn't share a room with Adam based on its layout, and no other rooms include her name.

Delilah appears bigger than Adam in her photo with him, implying she's the older sibling, but she's nowhere to be found in the memory segment of the Tower, while child Adam is.

She gives exposition dialogue in the same structure as Jeska. Both being religious figures on top of that makes Delilah's lore dumping redundant beyond it just being her that's saying it.

There was also meant to be the power of another OFF character residing in her too, like Adam, but the acquisition of this power makes no sense from a lore perspective, let alone Zaphkiel's character.

With this, along with me reminiscing about her incredibly late inclusion, I figured it best to remove her. It might have been a good idea to actually shape the world to better fit her into it, but the kind of way I'd want her implemented in the story would require rewriting a lot more than was reasonable for an update that was just meant to address some game breaking bugs. Though in all honesty, there's a lot Dismal and I have agreed could have been done better writing-wise, so Delilah also has to contend with our urge to redo everything.

I understand I'm kinda alone on this though. When I talked about it with Dismal at the time, he understood my reasoning for removing her but still seemed sad to see her go, so it might just be me being weird about something that doesn't matter to anyone. The ideas she introduces to the lore is still plenty fine, it's just her presence that's too contradictory for me to ignore. Those are the consequences of adding a character to a story right at the end when they hadn't been considered even once, I suppose.

I still left a nod to her though, in Sheol. I intentionally didn't delete the event to her map in that place because I knew it would crash the game if you tried entering. It felt like a fun meta way of alluding to the ghost of her ghost in what was meant to be an intentionally unstable place, but I guess it only served to make people notice her absence more.

Sorry for such a long answer, I've just been thinking about SinDec and Delilah a lot for a long time, and not really had an outlet to just talk about it like this for a while.