Thank you for the wonderful praise, it means a lot, truly.
I'm so glad you noticed the poles, that's where the "illusion" breaks down: it's not 3D movement, you're not controlling the ship but you're rotating pivot points located in the center of the planet. The "player" character is about the size of the sun and the ship is just a model stuck on top off it. I had to sacrifice full 3D movement from the beginning, as that quaternion math and smooth rotation on a sphere would have taken up all the time and it would have just ended up as a "fancy" tech demo. What you're seeing on the poles is the game slowing you down to avoid you ever reaching the pole at all, to avoid a gimbal lock.
"Save it for the remake" was my mantra to help me live with all the dirty hacks, and the hope that someone would notice it. So thank you again!