The Coffin of Andy and Leyley opened in early access

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

First two of four chapters released for controversial hand-drawn narrative adventure featuring cannibalism for survival

If you like your adventure games wholesome and harmless, then The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is definitely NOT for you. If, however, you perversely relish disturbing themes like cannibalism and potentially even incest played for grim laughs (no judgment – I do too!), then you'll be happy to know that the game is available now through early access.

There's far more to the game than its most controversial subjects, of course. Brother and sister Andrew and Ashley Graves witness a "botched satanic ritual" and are now trapped in their apartment amidst a "bleak world" outside. In order to survive – and possibly also because they've developed a taste for it – the siblings resort to secretly killing and eating others. Perhaps the greater challenge they face, however, is not avoiding starvation but rather surviving their own "extremely toxic sibling relationship." It's your choices that will help or hinder them in navigating a fraught relationship under intense circumstances, with all the consequences that entails.

The Coffin of Andy and Leyley looks like a top-down hand-drawn RPG but plays like a narrative adventure game with item collection, light puzzling, and visual novel-style dialogue. Despite its grisly subject matter, the game mixes in some dark humour and (at least so far) resists being overtly graphic, limiting its more shocking elements to small cartoony sprites. You'll play as both brother and sister at times, and the choices you make on their behalf range from largely inconsequential to significant story-branching options. Many relate to how the two protagonists treat each other. Like most siblings, they are close and care for each other but they also bicker and fight and sometimes bring out the worst in each other, so which avenue you choose to pursue will determine how their relationship develops. Do they come to truly despise each other's company, or do they grow closer than ever – perhaps a little TOO close for any rational person's sensibilities? There are many ways the story can play out, with lots of replay value and multiple endings to uncover.

Mind you, we'll have to wait a while for those endings to arrive. Only the first two of four planned chapters of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley are currently available through Steam Early Access for Windows PC, with the rest to be released sometime during the course of 2024.