I think big part of it is that he is open to criticism. Some developers are crybabies who cannot accept any form of constructive criticism even if it was coming from genuine fans.
Even the fanboys will jump on you for making a suggestion or making a valid critique.
I hope this culture will change overtime.
I agreed 100%. There's a developer who just turned his most recent Patreon post into a long diatribe to call out people from F95,
by name, when they offered constructive criticism. I won't name names, but you can find it if you take a quick run through my recent posts. It was a huge, petty, whiny grievance post and it's hilarious. Needless to say, someone that thin-skinned immediately made my ignore list. Participation trophy culture. I'm so happy I was born well before that shit became prevalent. The sycophantic followers are even more pathetic.
Fortunately, there are developers who have a vision but also partner with the community to make their games even better. TK8k is definitely one of them and it shows in his games.