(The story for) Very Cool Gun (VCG): A Rougelike Shooter with Only One Gun

The Protagonist, Yuko Matsumoto

Attributes

Age/Appearance: Yuko is a young, fit adult, age 23, with a faintly Asian appearance. She has a pretty average height, is decently built, and most notably, her right arm is significantly more muscular than her left, courtesy of the Grandfather Glove's influence. (To the right is a drawing for a prototype character design for Yuko)

Relationship status: Yuko has the option to build a romantic relationship with either Kalista or Forrest over the course of the game depending on who she talks to and how she talks to them, though she starts the game single.

Family background (parents, previous marriages, etc.): Yuko is the only remaining member of her family, her parents and four siblings were all killed when the Out attacked Kōmyō.

Friendships: Yuko gradually builds pretty good friendships with the entirety of the crew over the course of the game, with even her staunchest adversaries eventually becoming at the very least someone she can reliably count on and trust. Her strongest friendships are with Kalista, Forrest, Maya, and Booker, though depending on the player's actions one of the first two can be promoted to a romantic relationship and Yuko's relationship with Booker has more of a parent-child/mentor quality to it.

Job: Yuko's role within the Red Letters' ranks is a soldier, she's a talented fighter and can think quickly on her feet. When Yuko and her compatriots land on Sheol, she takes up the job of destroying the VCG by throwing it into the core, being the only one fit for the job as the only other person suited for such a task, being Yared Banner, had him arm broken shortly after landing on Sheol.

Sense of humor: Yuko has a somewhat crude, tomboyish sense of humor, she delights in jokes that make people uncomfortable/embarrassed; she'll jokingly compliment people in ways they don't expect/would find embarrassing, she'll make crude remarks about herself and others that one wouldn't expect from someone with her appearance, etc.

Temperament: Yuko is generally pretty relaxed, she has a laid-back, casual attitude, which is necessary to endure the repeated stress of her journeys into the planet's core. However, her patience is more easily strained by her crewmates like Yared or Booker, with whom she'll occasionally snap and angrily confront, sometimes physically.

Consideration for others: Yuko is largely indifferent to her crewmates for the beginning portion of the game, the team was assembled very hastily and none of them have met each other before the events of the game, so she initially only cares about them in the way a soldier cares about a scientist he's escorting: it's just part of the job. As the game goes along she cares for some characters more and others less as she forms a rivalry or two. By the end, though, she comes to deeply care for the entire crew, a true sense of camaraderie has formed and they feel like a big family. She respects her rivals as friends, and depending on who the player talks to, she has a deep romantic bond with a select crewmate.

How other people see him/her: Yuko gives a vastly different impression to everyone who meets her, some immediately hit it off and find her charming and funny, others detest her and find her egotistical and rude, and others are attracted to her carefree demeanor and unflinching bravery, both social and physical.

Opinion of him/herself: Yuko, despite her confident exterior, is deeply conflicted with herself. She blames herself for the death of her family and worries that she isn't adequate enough to complete her current mission. Her gradual progression, both with the game and with the relationships she forms with her crewmates, eventually becomes a sign to her that she is good enough, whether it be to destroy the VCG or to have a family, a role the crew takes on for her.

Describing the Main Character

On a surface level, Yuko is a loyal member of the Red Letters, she wants to destroy the VCG to stop it from falling into the hands of the Out, to save humanity from their tyranny, etc. But on a more personal level, what Yuko truly wants is a group of people to fill in for the family she lost, a role she hopes the crew can take on for her. She has obstacles obstructing her path to both of these goals, in the former case being the unpredictable and dangerous environment of Sheol and in the latter case being the struggle of having to form strong relationships with an eclectic group of strangers. Both goals both share a common theme: Yuko has to make use of/cooperate/coexist with her obstacles and learn from them in order to solve them. She has to use the VCG and the gradual improvement it gives her to destroy it, and she has to learn to work with, trust, and love her fellow crewmates in order to build that bond she so desperately wants.

Yuko's Arc

Yuko begins the game overconfident and indifferent to her crewmates, eager to finish her mission so she can leave and get back to her old life, despite how little it would end up having to offer for her. She's convinced Sheol is no match for her combat prowess, the power of the VCG, and the functional immortality the Grandfather Glove gives her and mostly writes the crew off as assistants and technicians to help her mission. However, she quickly starts to realize that Sheol is much more perilous than she initially thought, and accepts that she's going to be there for a while. She tempers her arrogance and starts taking the crew more seriously and treats them with more respect. She begins to form friendships with them, the two strongest being with Kalista and Forrest, with either one of these characters becoming a romantic partner as the story progresses depending on who the player speaks to more/in the right way. There's also a member of the group that greatly detests Yuko, named Yared, but as the game progresses the two settle their differences and eventually become trusting friends. By the end of the game, she realizes that she doesn't want to go to her old home anymore, that that desire was a manifestation of her grief and self-blame for the death of her family, whose role has now been fulfilled by the crew and (potentially) her new partner, who she plans to go home with.