Best thing is expression reactions. Bad things is the horrible dialogue. x3

Believable, relatable and emotion driven dialogue. Empathizing properly with the content within it. I think dating sims are best when you can connect to it.

Cheap, unearned and absurd reasons for a get-together. It has no weight if it's just handed out despite being a silly manner; comes off as just cringey fanservice. In my opinion at least.

Things that I like: Down to earth personalities. TBH there have been so many dating games lately that try to have every date-able character fit a certain trope and it gets old fast. A good/relatable personality that seems real and true makes the game feel more real and gives the player more of a connection (at least that is what I believe).

Things that I hate: cringey fanservice and going on "dates" that either are not entertaining or relatable to the character OR "dates" that get somehow interrupted by some sort of moment that honestly shouldn't of happen or was just plain dumb. Also, bad dialogue options...so many dating games have bad dialogue options it is annoying or dialogue options where you think it means one thing but the character states it the total opposite of what you wanted.

As for Dating Sims inspiration can be taken by my favorite 'Lovers of Aether'. Since it gives a lot of different characters to go after and even some that have a higher difficulty to win over.

*Variety of characters.
*Various Difficulty.
*Simple base story so it will be easy to fit in.
*Achievements for added replay value the game.

I have a certain distaste for the kindness coin mechanic. Y'know how you're supposed to agree with whatever the date says and give them stuff and boom, they spread their legs.

Mind you, this is a staple of dating games and kind of hard to avoid, but it ends up giving people kind of a skewed view of romance and dating that spills over into real life.

I've heard that Otome games have their own trope where you as a female main character need to change yourself to gain the approval of one of several hot boys and that sounds like its own set of issues.

so far my favorite visual novel has been Ladykiller in a Bind, which has a pretty involved conversation system and a pretty wide variety of encounters from sweet and romantic to pretty abusive. While it is a very mechanics-focused VN, I found myself thinking of the characters as people rather than sex vending machines, which is what I want even if, technically speaking, it more or less uses the same old kindness coin mechanics under the hood.

Usually having set times or dates things MUST happen for the "best" ending. I find it endlessly frustrating. It's even worse if you have to micromanage stuff like taking a shower, eating or work schedules. I play games to avoid real life. I prefer it if games didn't try to emulate life too closely. I like the idea of dating games, but they are too gamey. I would prefer it if they were slightly looser in requirements. Nobody is so strict that if you answer one question sub optimally that they will eventually be done with you. It's not reasonable, but I would prefer it to be more dynamic. But that would take a hell of a lot of programming.

Take all this with a load of salt as I just avoid dating games or visual novels at this point.

Actual furry or scalie races

Just don't advertise it like it will be a dating sim with complex characters only for it to be cardboard cutout trope characters with boardgame dating mechanics. Aka: don't be monster prom

I don't think monster prom claimed to be a super in depth look at characters. It was just meant to be a fun silly game.

I may have read it wrong through the promotional material I saw then

Yea It didn't seam to be wanting to be a very realistic game on any level. More of a comedy.