Personally I’m glad the game isn’t written to necessarily fit the preferences of “the average smut connoisseur”. As long as every game does that (and to be honest, that’s what most games on here already seem to do), we’ll end up with a bunch of similar games, and creators who don’t write what they want or are good at.
I get the fascination with the “larger than life” protagonist. But for me it’s exactly their averageness that makes them interesting to control. Ian is insecure after his recent breakup and feels he’s going nowhere in his career, but he’s also a smart, creative, empathic, ambitious guy, who so far is also getting some rave reviews from the female cast for his skills in bed.
So we can go for a safe option like Holly, who’s already hopelessly in love with him. Or someone like Cindy: She’s far more high maintenance, which demands that we make sure Ian steps up his game and follows his dreams and ambitions. Or we can just go all in and try to have sex with as many women as possible, while potentially establishing a successful career as a writer or MMA fighter in the process.
I suspect having Axel as a protagonist would feel a lot more straightforward. He's meant to be incredibly attractive, he's got a natural, immediate charisma, and he's a hot shot photographer who owns a gigantic apartment, giving him an extremely easy way to get attractive women to come back to his apartment and strip down. As a protagonist he would've gotten some more character depth, but still. When we make a choice for Ian, it feels like we're choosing between two impulses that already exist in him as a character. With Axel I think it would be different—“have sex with as many women as possible” would already be the standard option before we'd start forming him through our choices. Which to be fair also sounds fun, but still something it's not difficult to find other games that do.
