Video Game / The Coffin of Andy and Leyley

Good day! Are you still alive in there?

"Cannibalism and codependency!"

— The game's Steam page

The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is an RPG Maker Psychological Horror Comedy game originally under development by Nemlei for Windows, and now co-created with Kit9 Studio. It is Nemlei's first game in RPG Maker, in contrast to their previous Visual Novel-style games.

The Coffin of Andy and Leyley serves as an episodic release in different sections of development; the inaugural episode was first uploaded (as a game jam demo through itch.io) on March 23, 2023, with the second episode (and the Early Access through Steam version) released on Friday, October 13, 2023. Nemlai has stated that two more episodes ("different routes of episode 3") are still in development, and the game is expected to be complete at the same time in 2024. Currently, only the Steam version of the game is still available, due to Nemlei having erased their online presence, including their itch.io account.

The game tells the story of Andrew and Ashley Graves, a pair of siblings who are trapped in their small apartment. Their parents have left, and the entire building is under quarantine due to an outbreak of parasites, with no residents allowed to leave. To make matters worse, food is in short supply and the government wardens are uninterested in helping.

But there's hope: they can reach their neighbor's apartment - the same neighbor who is fond of trying to summon demons. After he succeeds and gets himself killed, the siblings decide to dismember and eat his corpse. This leads to a chain of events that results in Leyley making a pact with said demon, and now the two must flee the apartment and stay low before their crimes are discovered. Whatever are two mentally unstable and unhealthily co-dependent siblings to do? (Hint: it's murder and cannibalism.)

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This game contains examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Despite the horror of dismembering their first victim and the gravity of their situation, Andrew can't help but break down laughing after Ashley haphazardly folds the torso over and sandwiches it between two refuse bags with a 'ta-da!' motion.
• All for Nothing:
  • While Andrew and Ashley are investigating their neighbor's apartment, the Warden knocks on the door and, when he gets no response, reluctantly reports that the man is likely dead and he's going to open the apartment to check on him. They're naturally infuriated at the revelation that all they had to do was play dead this whole time, especially since they just ate a part of said neighbor the night before under the assumption that they were stuck without food indefinitely.
  • Discussed when Leyley begins to blackmail Andy, threatening to tell everyone he was involved in Nina's death if he doesn't stick with her forever, Andy sadly remarks that she didn't need to resort to blackmail, telling her he already loved her best and chose her. Leyley doesn't believe him.
  • In the Decay route, Ashley's insistence on sacrificing her parents to recharge her trinket becomes this when the trinket's power is immediately used on showing her a new threat that came about directly as a result of her actions: Andrew, who's hit his Rage Breaking Point and will likely kill her in the immediate future.
• Animesque: The characters are drawn in a mix of anime and western cartoon styles.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Considering that the wardens were starving the residents for an organ harvesting scheme (except the one they were having sex with), you can’t exactly feel sorry for them after one gets chopped in the neck with a cleaver and the other gets their soul sacrificed to a demon.
  • The duo's parents are similarly hard to feel sorry for given that they sold their children to be harvested for organs. In the Decay Route, this also has a tint of Alas, Poor Villain, as Andrew does feel sorry for them on that route, the entire thing is far from cathartic there and he plots his independence from Ashley and plans her death over it.
• Artistic License – Medicine: The plot of the game revolves around residents being starved to death in order to harvest their organs. If someone is extremely hungry their body will start to disassemble their organs and muscles for proteins as a last ditch effort to stave of starvation, meaning the organs would be useless for transplantation. It's implied that transplantation is the purpose of the organ harvest since whoever locked the apartment's tenants in their units also bothered to put their blood types on the door, which would be critical in order to find a compatible organ.
• Beauty Is Bad:
  • The Graves Siblings are the game's Villain Protagonists who become a pair of cannibal serial killers over the course of the story. Both are very physically attractive with their Raven Hair, Ivory Skin appearance, in spite of all this. Andrew is a physically capable Tall, Dark, and Handsome young man who can be very charismatic when he wants be. While Ashley is a well-endowed young woman who can be oddly endearing at times despite her sociopathic tendencies.
  • Downplayed for Mrs. Graves, who is is a neglectful, Abusive Parent who sold off her children to an Organ Theft operation to become rich off her kids' life insurance money, but she also happen to have the same good looks as her children, is just as delightfully snarky as them, and does have some sympathetic traits as a struggling mother who has to deal with her crazy children. She also doesn't really mind when her children come back to her house to freeload and her last words also indicate she might feel remorseful over sacrificing them. Maybe.
• Bite of Affection:
  • In Episode 2, after Ashley compares Andy to a marshmallow and praising herself for keeping other women from gobbling him up, while straddling atop of him on their parents' couch she then gives one to her brother on his cheek.
  • In the Questionable route, Ashley is seen with a bite mark on her shoulder, hinting at this.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Questionable Burial route:
  • Unlike in the Sane Burial route, Ashley cannot let go of Andrew and while she unlocks the rabbit representing him from its cage, symbolizing giving him more freedom and trust, she replaces every relationship in her life with him, showing she wants him as her brother, best friend, family, and soulmate all at once. The Entity then shows both siblings a future vision in which they commit Brother–Sister Incest. As flustered and unsure as Andrew is by this, having Ashley affirm that it could take place in the future rather than denying any possibility of it gives the siblings the outwardly happiest rendition of the Burial Ending, as the two playfully tease each other and Ashley shows a surprising amount of empathy, asking Andrew if his night terrors are getting any better. It zigzags back to bitter as Andrew's hand has developed an eye marking, showing the Entity might have a hold on him.
• Black Comedy: It's all over the place. From Ashley's sarcastic quips, to the Grave's siblings nonchalant and playful attitude in disposing of their parent's corpses, to the Obviously Evil corporate-controlled advertisements and news on the TV, you'll find no shortage of them.
• Bondage Is Bad: The Graves sibling's parents are shown to engage in bondage, and they are uncaring at best and abusive at worst.
• Brick Joke: Andrew brings up that he has the "right" to grab her ass whenever she wants when they're breaking into their parents' house. Later that night there's a Freeze-Frame Bonus showing he's doing just that while discussing murdering their parents.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Depending on your choices in the game, Ms. Graves accuses Andrew of having sex with his sister Ashley. Following that, along with another choice, Andrew and Ashley will get a vision of them having sex in the future.
• Brother–Sister Team: Ashley and Andrew are siblings, and they are a duo of criminals who team up to stage breakouts and serial killings.
• Cain and Abel: Two possible endings to Episode 2 have Ashley having a premonition of her either getting murdered by Andrew or her killing him in self defense.
• Crapsack World: The setting seems to be ruled by some sort of comically evil soft drink corporation who can purposefully lock people in their apartments and starve them to death by staging a fake outbreak and they seemingly have full control over the government, healthcare and media. While their parents are indifferent at worst rather than blatantly abusive, the Graves siblings, especially Ashley, are just as bad as the corporation trying to kill them.
• Demonic Possession: The "good" endings to Episode 2 end with the sign of the demon manifesting on Andrew's hand. Given that the demon had shown a particular interest in Andrew, it's implied that it intends to possess him.
• The Dog Bites Back: With Ashley becoming increasingly deranged since the events of the apartment escape and taking Andrew firmly off society's rails and forcing him into a survivalist mindset alongside her, the methods and manipulations that she used to coerce her brother when they were kids are beginning to backfire. Starting with the murder of the random Lady at the end of chapter 1, Ashley attempting to use their old status quo to have him kill people and commit horrific crimes under her further alienates him to the point he starts seeing killing her outright as the only way out in the Decay route of Chapter 2. The vision of this playing out becomes Ashley's Wake-Up Call that her toxic relationship with him will not end well at all and leaves Ashley truly terrified of the future for the first time.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: As the neighbor finds out, make sure you've got payment handy when asking favors of a demon, or you'll be the payment.
• Evil Versus Evil: Two siblings in a very toxic relationship who aren't above killing others versus a conspiracy behind an organ harvesting scheme, which include corrupt wardens who starve the apartment's residents, a dangerous hit-man, and even the siblings' own parents.
• Forbidden Fruit: A flashback scene has a young Andrew and Ashley watching a very gory R-rated movie. Ashley is very much into it while Andrew is very much the opposite. He asks Ashley why she likes it so much, and she says that it's because she was told she wasn't allowed to watch it.
• Freak Out: Andrew experiences it after incest scene plays out, you can even double down on it as Ashley, which instantly makes him say "Oh fuck no" while saying no rapidly in denial, as Ashley will continue to mock him for his Character Flaw, he starts to leave the room.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Of the Incest Subtext variety.
  • When speaking to Ashley firmly in their parents' home and grabbing her by the chin, Andrew's eyes noticeably go from Ashley's eyes to her lips right before the scene changes.
  • Andrew can briefly be seen with his fingers in Ashley's belt loop, subtly grabbing Ashley's ass while they're discussing murdering their parents while preparing dinner.
  • Right after Ashley bites him on the cheek, Andrew can be seen covering his crotch with a pillow.
• Genre Mashup: Although the game is primarily a Psychological Horror genre, there might be some others included, such as adventure, black comedy, buddy comedy, gothic romance, psychological drama, puzzle, and supernatural horror.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Contrary to what is shown on the title art, Andrew is the only one who uses the cleaver. Ashley meanwhile holds onto a gun she looted from the warden whose soul she sacrificed to The Entity and, unlike Andrew, she even explicitly declares it to be hers. A downplayed example as she lends the gun to Andrew for the only occasion they had to actually use it so far.
• Irony: Ashley is terrified that Andrew will abandon her and commits various deplorable acts to keep him by her side, including blackmail and murder. As Andrew himself points out, he never wanted to leave Ashley and consistently chooses her even when she upsets him on purpose. For an added layer of irony, Ashley choosing to give up some of her control on Andrew goes leaps and bounds into improving their rocky relationship, while Ashley choosing to mistrust and exert further control over him has him reach his breaking point and become furiously resentful of her, leading to the Decay route where Ashley has a vision of Andrew murdering her.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While mean and dismissive towards the siblings, the downstairs lady rather rationally assumes that Andy and Ashley were just sick and tired of quarantine, rather than actually being trapped, as while she might have been having sex with the wardens, her reactions imply she doesn't know that that's the reason why she's not starving. Her rudeness towards Andrew and Ashley is also justified by the fact that they barged into her apartment unannounced.
• Leave No Witnesses: After Andrew and Ashley escape their apartment building, they find out that the entire building burned down in a fire, killing everybody inside, with the clear implication the government was behind it to destroy the evidence of their organ harvesting operation.
• Multiple Endings: Episode 2 sets up two different routes, Burial (which contains two subroutes) and Decay, for Episode 3 depending on how much trust the siblings put in each other while preparing to sacrifice their parents; Ashley to trust Andrew enough to leave him alone with their mother (fearing she may try to turn him against her) and Andrew to trust Ashley enough to not turn on her at their mother's urging.
  • Decay: If Ashley refuses to leave Andrew alone with their mother, or Andrew accepts the olive branch his mother offers, then their relationship becomes hostile, with Ashley resuming use of the nickname "Andy" to resume exerting control over her brother and bragging about how eating human flesh makes her superior in front of him during their cannibal meal. After the ritual, Ashley dreams about being chased through a maze by an unknown pursuer, revealed to be Andrew, and has a vision where she either kills him in self-defense, or is killed by him in a murder-suicide, shaking her to her core.
  • Burial: If Ashley decides to trust Andrew alone with their mother and he rejects the olive branch his mother offers, then Andrew sees through Mrs. Graves' excuses, causing her to accuse him of sleeping with Ashley. Ironically, Ashley overhearing this causes the siblings' relationship to improve considerably, with more mutual respect and friendly banter. After the ritual, Ashley dreams about stuffed toys representing the important people in her and Andrew's lives, culminating in a symbolic painting, where another choice leads into different versions of the Burial Ending:
    • The "Sane" ending: Ashley either chooses to let Andrew go with Julia, leading to neither sibling receiving a premonition from the Entity. Ashley has a dream where she catches souls, but chooses not to trap Andrew's. She then wakes up and the two go to dispose of their parents' skeletons. At Ashley's insistence, Andrew speaks a few words about their parents, and the two go off to find themselves fake IDs.
    • The "Questionable" ending: Ashley chooses to keep Andrew for herself. She has a dream sequence where she lets Andrew out of his cage, but then places him in front of every piece of her life, leading to the Entity granting the pair a vision of Brother–Sister Incest. The vision causes considerable embarrassment from Andrew, who was viewing the vision at the same time, with Ashley either able to reassure him that it's never going to happen, or suggestively declare "never say never", which leads to even further improvement of the pair's relationship. The two then go to dispose of their parents' skeletons, where Andrew and Ashley play a game to throw the skulls as far as they can and share a hug before similarly going off to procure fake IDs. An eye then appears on Andrew's hand, showing the Entity intends on targeting him.
• Nail 'Em: A nail gun is used by the downstairs woman in an attempt to kill Andrew, but he kills her before she can do so. Later on, it's used to nail a carpet to the floor so the siblings can escape out of the window.
• No Party Like a Donner Party:
  • Ashley and Andrew eat their neighbor after he foolishly gets himself killed during his ritual. Ashley continues to insist it was Andrew's idea despite having blatantly suggested it.
  • They also end up eating their own parents as a way to help dispose of their bodies.
• Number of the Beast: Unsurprisingly, a game that heavily involves demon summoning features this quite a bit:
  • The cultist's demon summoning manual is called Demon Summoning for Total Morons, Vol. 666. Ashley wonders if there really were 665 previous volumes, or if that's the only one and they just gave it that number to make it more demonic.
  • If you search the cultist's coat, you find his wallet with $666.66 inside.
  • The Six Eyes cult's hideout has a huge "666" graffiti scrawled on the outside, surrounded by demonic eyes. The password to the elevator is also "666", and Andrew internally snarks that he doesn't know why he even considered the possibility that it could have been anything else.
• Organ Theft: The actual reason behind the quarantine. Tenants are starved to death, then taken for harvesting under the guise of taking them to the hospital. Andrew is so exasperated when he discovers this that he doesn't even care anymore.
• Our Product Sucks: ToxiSoda openly calls their soda disgusting in their advertisements, yet is somehow not only in business, but successful enough to be able to get governments, media, and hospitals on their side.
• Parental Neglect: Ashley never really had the best relationship with their parents, even before the quarantine. Their mother couldn't handle her instability and palmed off raising her to Andrew, while their father is rather weak willed and never really had any significant presence in their life.
• Rage Breaking Point:
  • After nearly getting killed by the downstairs woman when she tried to escape, Andrew gets into yet another bout of bickering with Ashley in which she makes one too many horrid remarks about him, their past, and their classmate, whom they're implied to have killed by mistake. He finally gets fed up with her crap and begins throttling her, seriously contemplating killing her.
  • According to her visions, at some point in the Decay route Andrew will have enough of Ashley and decide to kill her.
• Sarcasm Mode: The game's dialogue tends to be outright sarcastic and snarky at times, especially concerning Ashley's quips and the News Reports.
• Self-Made Orphan: In Episode 2, Ashley end up selling their parents' souls to the demon and then murdering their comatose bodies. Notably, unlike with the Wardens prior Andrew only helped Ashley to set that up, she did both the demon summoning and the murders personally.
• Sex Signals Death: Despite her claims to the contrary, the downstairs girl was having sex with the guards, and she gets offed by Andrew after being held prisoner by the siblings.
• Sleeping Single: Andrew regularly has nightmares and joins Ashley in her bed as a way of coping with them. When they move to a motel room at the start of Episode 2 Ashley will chuckle that her brother specifically sought out a room with separate beds only to end up sharing a bed regardless, while Andrew will admit to himself, internally, that he's faking his nightmares.
• Smoking Hot Sex: The first panel of the vision where the titular duo have intercourse is Andrew lighting up a cigarette. There's also official art (not in-game) that shows Ashley sitting on Andrew's lap, lighting one for him.
• "Success Through Sex" Accusation:
  • A variation involving Sexual Extortion rather than Sex for Services. When Andy and Ashley hear from the lady in the floor below their apartment that she has been receiving food from the wardens (when they weren't given any) by asking nicely, Ashley replies, "like 'bend over and open wide' -nicely?" Her accusation proves to be true when they force her to call a warden to lure him to their room for "a good time" so Ashley can use him as an offering for the Entity.
  • Mrs. Graves accuses Andrew of sleeping with his sister, thinking that her body's the only thing she could possibly be offering him to justify how much he loves and cares for her.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: When Andrew disposes of Mr. Washing Machine your choices are "Shoot" and "SHOOT!!!" The former will have Andrew fire one bullet, which is enough, while the latter has Andrew firing until the gun is empty. Ashley will castigate Andrew for wasting all their ammunition, but Andrew does point out no one else knows it's empty. In the Decay ending, if the gun still has bullets, Ashley can shoot Andrew in the dream showdown, where she uses up the remaining rounds to kill him before desecrating his corpse, flipping him a middle finger and laughing hysterically.
• Title Drop: The title refers to the apartment where the Graves are deliberately left to starve and die over a MegaCorp-sponsored organ harvesting operation. In this case, the "death" is metaphorical, as Andrew demands they abandon their childhood nicknames (Andy for Andrew and Leyley for Ashley) as well as the toxic dynamic they share.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • The Neighbour summons a demon without having anything to offer it, which predictably ends very badly for him.
  • Lampshaded if you have Ashley walk into the road in Chapter Two, where the narration will chide the player for being stupid and to get out of the road.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Andrew is completely apathetic to the revelation that the quarantine is part of an organ harvesting operation. Justified since by that point he's been through so much that nothing registers anymore.
• Video Game Caring Potential: The game offers you a couple of interactions per episode where you can help the siblings be nicer to each other.
  • By rummaging through the cultist's jacket in Episode 1 you'll find $666.66, which Ashley can choose to share with Andrew.
  • Episode 2 allows Andrew to return the favour, using some of his limited currency to buy Ashley a limited-edition drink from a vending machine.
• Villain Has a Point: Despite the fact that Ashley isn't exactly the nicest of people, she's correct in saying that none of their friends or family have helped them at all during their situation, not even bothering to walk by their balcony. She also points out Andrew's Fatal Flaw of willingly going along with everything she says even if he could always stand up against her instead, and uses this to keep him under wraps when the siblings get into deadly arguments.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: How Ashley reacts to finding out the wardens open the apartments if no one responds to roll call, rendering most of their struggles pointless.

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