It's a freeware PC game made by 1 person (afaik). It's a space game where you start out in the early days of space exploration, and have to research engines, ships parts, etc and then build those ships to not only explore the solar system, but the galaxy as a whole. From what I understand, there are aliens in the game that you do eventually have to fight. The graphics were virtually non-existant, just a 2d plane with dots representing ships. The windows that you opened to do things in were standard plain windows forms. Nothing flashy.
Without knowing if this is a current game or something from the past, then my best guess would be Aurora:
Wiki - http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
Forums - http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php
Pretty sure that's the game. Thankyou Calahan. :)
I did a little research on this game and watched a game play video, and I have to say it does look interesting, if complicated and aesthetically... basic.
Aurora has been on my to-play list since forever, as it's supposed to be the Dwarf Fortress of 4x space games. But the two briefest of attempts I've had so far at getting into it when I thought "okay, I should have a good bit of free time over the next week or two" have both been immediately proceeded by an unexpected and sudden personal problem :(
As such I'm reluctant to try it a third time in case the damn game is cursed for me >:(
Even as seasoned DF player I had problems getting into Aurora, since Space Empires got disbanded,
but I could not really get a foot into it either.
I had a lot of fun with Distant Worlds.