What a knack for storytelling. This is real "Ninth Gate" or "Grail" type stuff. Take your time and develop the story. You're doing a great job, and I can't wait to see how it ends.
Planets destroying themselves via civil war should happen far less often. Once it happens the first time, you'd think the other planets would take it as a cautionary tale...
On second thought, ignore my suggestions and don't add any code to the game. It's bloated enough as it is. It's currently using 2320540K (as in, 2.2 GB) of RAM according to Task Manager. :-/
How about a setting to automatically send a fighter to any planets with hostile populations when they reach 4.0? There's no real point to letting them advance beyond that once you've capped your research for that level. Strategy and time management are one thing, but I'm not into space-themed whack-a-mole.
There needs to be more options to deal with high-tech colonies than kill them or leave them alone. What about putting orbital platforms around the planet to shoot down any ships they launch? What about diplomacy -- a cease-fire that costs a small amount of resources to maintain? Something needs to allow them to grow to the point where I can harvest tech from them, without having to constantly micromanage shooting down their attacking ships.
How about an option to auto-pause the game when enemy ships are launched? Otherwise, I'm forced to play the game on slow speed in order to have time to react -- which kind of negates the usefulness of being able to speed up the game clock.
I enjoyed it, but had a hard time spotting a few key objects in plain sight. Great that you told a story here. That's what makes games memorable. Nice job.
The henchmen should be procurable through in-game currency through repetitive play. Also, there should be a more diverse upgrade path for weapons and for henchmen. Castle upgrades would be welcome. You have an OK foundation for a game, but it lacks upgradable elements that would keep me coming back to play more. Having to pay for henchmen is kind of a turnoff too, but, I suppose one could just stick with Jesser.
Highly, highly enjoyable game because of the thought that went into the story behind it. The game is fraught with spelling, usage, and style problems in the text, but the great story made these easy to forgive. The game play was pure nostalgia for anyone who used computers before everything had a GUI in front of it. Yes, there were anachronisms if this was supposed to reflect a computing environment in the sixties, but the good outweighed the bad here. My one complaint was the Chicago Tribune puzzle was not a puzzle. It was a homework assignment. I expect solutions to be achievable solely in-game, and I think that was a design misstep -- or else you weren't as explicit about it up front as you should have been. I'm looking forward to the next installment to see where the door goes. Keep the ideas flowing!
If the in-game solutions require visiting external pages in real-life, please state that up front. I applaud the innovation, but, I expected an in-game solution to that puzzle. If Tribune were to ever take that page down, then your game would have to be re-coded.
Great concept. I found the rotation a little difficult to control due to the sensitivity, and would have appreciated some sort of turn/pitch sensitivity control for the big fella. The game is a tad short, as others mention. You quickly get upgrades that make the game progressively trivial, with few added dimensions of complexity. Having said that, for 5 minutes or so, this was indeed pure guilty fun.
Suggestion: I disagree with the mechanic of having to micromanage which plant fills which orders when you build multiple plants. Extra micro is not a good thing. Instead you should have 3 fulfillment settings: CLOSEST: Orders are always filled by the closest factory. FIFO: Whichever factory is available first always fulfills the next order in the queue. MICRO: (current setting) The currently selected factory fulfills the order when the order is issued.
What the heck is up with the "black invisible" opponent that randomly teleports in? You say the AI "has exactly the same moves and resources that are available to you." but I'm having a hard time believing that's true of the black opponent.
Am I the only one who thinks those meteorites come down just a tad fast for comfort? Those upgrades keep you coming back for one more play, though. Nice job.
 "The Last Door Ch.4 - Ancient Shadows")
 "Galaxy Harvest")
 "a Grain of Truth")
 "Besieged 2 Infinite")
 "Mu Complex : Episode One")
 "Effing Worms 2")
 "Building Rush")
 "Royal Warfare")
 "Solarmax 2"){kind=icon}
 "How Dare You")
Right now I'm testing it.