Noctis is really something else, a tiny freeware game that manages to simulate an entire galaxy, and yet only be 1,621 Kb in size. There are 70+ billion stars in the entire galaxy, each and every one can be visited, most of which have planets and moons orbiting them. The planets can be landed on, so long as they aren't gas giants or dangerous volcanic worlds (the latter can be landed on in a mod however) and a rare few support little polygonal lifeforms and trees. Noctis has a small bit of background story, telling a short tale of the Felisians, sentient felines who built a peaceful spacefaring society, until one day they vanish for parts unknown, leaving their explorers, the stardrifters, stranded.
Noctis lacks any goal, unless you set one, like finding amazing ring systems or interesting life supporting worlds, other than things like that, you're totally alone with a whole galaxy ahead of you.
It's possible to name planets and stars and write notes about them in the Guide, the stardrifter encyclopedia, these used to be released as downloadable updates, but this doesn't happen anymore sadly. This is the reason you'll find some named systems and worlds in the game though.
The amount of detail is amazing, planets orbit, atmospheric storms shift about, and moons also orbit their planets, even when you aren't playing, thanks to your system clock.
Some pictures I've taken while exploring:
A vivid pinkish gas giant world, orbiting either a Blue Dwarf or a Blue Giant star, I can't really tell from the pic. The graphics have an aged but oddly charming quality to them.
Some things to notice about Noctis snapshots, the numbers in the upper left corner are Noctis' unique but rather confusing time keeping system. The bottom numbers are the Parsis Coordinates, a system you can use to jump to any point in the galaxy, if you have enough fuel. The current year in Noctis is EPOC 6011, and it will continue to be so...for a while...Felisians have long years.
The MASSIVE rings of a planet in the Palette system. The system wasn't named by me though, somebody found it long ago, but never left any guide notes about the system. These are still the biggest rings I've seen in Noctis to date. Pretty impressive lighting for such an old game.
The surface of some far-off barren world with no name, binary star though!
The extremely bright colors of a life bearing world, once again not named by myself.
WARNING! Noctis is pretty old, as the website banner says, it was "written by Fottifoh between 1996 and 2001" and as such, you may not have the easiest time getting it to run on your PC, but I can always help as I've seen just about all the common problems it can throw at you, so just ask! :)
The site:
http://www.anywherebb.com/noctis.html
The download is right on the front page.