The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is almost a visual novel and follows the misadventures of a pair of siblings trapped in quarantine (Episode 1). They are locked in their apartments and forbidden to leave because of an alleged outbreak involving water contaminated with parasites. A warden patrols their floor and occasionally gives them false promises of supplies.
The story is released in chapters and is currently incomplete. I don’t typically write content warnings. Beyond cartoon violence and strong language, this game is exceptionally dark:
- cannibalism
- sex jokes
- innuendo or possible trajectory towards incest
The
main characters are both at least twenty years old.
Infer an objective based on visuals and interactable objects.
The
story branches.
Characters
Ashley “Leyley” Graves
Ashley is the first character introduced in the game. She is also played for the majority of Episode 1. She is the mischievious younger sister of Andrew. Her pragmatic actions in the first chapter, avoiding starvation, continue into the second chapter when the situation changes.
Ashley is decisive but disregards hypothetical or future consequences. She is described by a demon to have a “soul of tar”. In her misadventures with her brother, he is often left as the one who considers the risks in certain actions to avoid law enforcement.
Shes a thorough psychopath as if the developers went through the wikipedia page for reference when writing her.
Andrew “Andy” Graves
Andrew is the second playable character of the game. He is a smoker and a college dropout (part of dropping out was quarantine). He is the lethargic older brother of Ashley. By the second chapter, his lethargy better resembles apathy.
Andrew is often the accomplice in the schemes Ashley drags him into. However, compared to her, his role is more gruesome. He also feels remorse and guilt over his actions. Additionally, he gets angry when Ashley refers to him as Andy, the nickname he had as a child.
He will shift between freaking out over what he has done to continuing with what has to be done with apathy (and possible self-disassociation). The former, I believe, represents “Andy” a part of Andrew who is more controllable for Ashley. While the letter is a potential threat to her.
A profound moment in Andrew’s life was an incident in his childhood with a girl named Nina.
Nina
Nina is an asthmatic girl from Andrew and Ashley’s childhood. Because Nina had a crush on Andrew, Ashley came up with a scheme to lock Nina in a wooden crate overnight in an abandoned warehouse during a game of hide and seek. With Andrew’s co-operation, Nina was trapped in the crate and suffocated to death.
Julia
Julia is Andrew’s ex-girlfriend from college and the best friend of Nina. Julia had been sent verbally abusive voice mail by Ashley.
Hitman
The Hitman is an unnamed minor antagonist that appears in Episode 2. The siblings deduce the hitman is targetting them, but it is not (yet) revealed who hired him and why.
Mrs Graves, “Mother”
Mrs Graves is the neglectful mother of Andrew and Ashley who had tasked the former with raising the latter. She has green eyes from which Andrew takes after. Of the two parents, she is more assertive and stronger characterized.
The two siblings have little trust in their mother. Andrew describes her to be maintaining a facade. Likewise, he does the same before his parents. Mrs Graves, however, knew about the incident with Nina and had since kept it secret.
Mr Graves, “Father”
The developers made Steam trading cards for each member of the family except him.
Mr Graves is the similarly detached father of the family. He has hot pink eyes from which Ashley takes after. He is usually tired after work and isn’t involved much in his children’s lives. He is noted by Andrew to be someone who merely facilitates the demands of his wife, almost a parallel to Andrew’s relationship with Ashley. Compared to Mrs Graves, Mr Graves has significantly less presence in the game, only being drawn for one scene.
The Setting
The setting is much like real life but with significantly less smartphones. Beyond that, I find the characters to be a cruel reflection of the society they live in.
Andrew and Ashley were never delivered supplies while in quarantine. Instead, the wardens Dave and Malcolm have been delivering food to a “hot lady” one floor below.
Mrs Graves abandons Andrew and Ashley to quarantine. She also downplays Ashley’s calls for help and asks the latter to never call her again.
The
media nonchalantly lies about the situation and inserts advertisements
for exceptionally bad soft drinks.
An
advertisement for “euthanasia”, or medically-assisted suicide without a
fatal condition.
Out of most other things, the cult that summons demons is benign or harmless if not airheaded sometimes. The blood they use for (unsuccessful) rituals are sourced from butcher shops. One cultist recoils at Andrew’s “demon sex party” comment; the former citing his marriage.
Where the incest theme originates
In Episode 1, the siblings trapped in their apartment make sex-related jokes. One joke sprung from contemplating suicide. Another sprung from a woman from the building being loaded onto the ambulance.
As a part of her personality, Ashley creates awkward moments for her brother. In Episode 2, in order to lure a hitman out. Ashley acts out, pretending Andrew is her lusty boyfriend, forcing Andrew to play hide and seek with his sister and a killer. (I assume the hitman is not aware the two are brother and sister.) Later in Episode 2, when Andrew’s motives are questioned by his mother, she quickly accuses him of having an incestuous relationship.
As revealed by dream sequences throughout the game, Ashley is emotionally dependent on her brother. Both were neglected by their parents. However, Andrew is more emotionally stable having friendships. His romantic relationships are sabotaged by Ashley because a girlfriend would cause her brother to distance from her.
After playing Episode 1 and 2
- I stole 666 dollars from the cultist neighbor in Episode 1; doing so does not affect Episode 2’s progression.
- In Episode 2, I summoned another demon in the cultist’s night club which was bigger and more powerful-looking than the first; this means it’s possible to summon demons without anyone getting sacrificed.
- When I first played Episode 2, during the hitman scenario, I picked the second option which causes Andrew to empty the magazine. I replayed this scenario and found the first option causes Andrew to fire one bullet only, meaning the gun has remaining bullets.
The substory of Nina introduced in Episode 1 adds history to the character; however, if the game brings it up too much in later chapters, the story becomes either the characters navelgazing or the player gazing into the navel of the characters. (The characters evaded suspicion during immediate investigations.)
I lost my suspension of disbelief in Episode 2 regarding the parents. I understand that Mrs Graves is neglectful and dismissive. Andrew says as a eulogy, “Sorry we sold your souls, but you sold ours”. The issue the siblings have with their parents sounds like there should be elaboration; however, again, I don’t think the game should put more of the characters’ pasts in focus. Plenty of people had been endangered or otherwise had their youth/health/life taken for granted by terrible, neglectful parents; most of them don’t commit murders.
Going from Episode 1 to 2, I think Ashley’s characterization became weaker. She had gone from a supportive, energetic sister to a thorough psychopath as described by wikipedia and the most search-optimized results of search engines. Regarding Andrew, either I don’t recognize his case (beyond a psychopathic sister) or that he’s a character that doesn’t squarely fit into a personality disorder or mental illness defined in the DSM-5.
My speculation for Episode 3: the siblings are or have nascent demon souls and there is an anti-demon cult, operating contrary to the demon-summoning one shown in Episode 1 and 2, that is trying to kill them. I anticipate the game not to delve any further into the characters’ past given that the characters killed what was left of it.