Some tidbits and easter eggs:

• There was once a warp sequence - but it got taken out because it got too repetitive seeing it each level.

• The end game sound by default is "damn" - but this upset parents (of children presumably now bereft of their innocence) and/or fundamentalist Christians. People wrote in to complain. So in a newer version, to appease the "fundies" as he so fondly calls them, Ben added two new sounds: one saying "you lose", the other an emphatic "praise Jesus" like a southern pastor.

Many of the sounds in Solarian II were sampled from 80s songs. Here's the full list from the game files:

And with some help from reddit (and Ben himself), I've tracked down sources for many of them already:

• Present Bounce → Prince - I Would Die 4 U

• Damn! → Prince - Housequake

• Supply Ship Alert → Peter Gabriel - Not One of Us

• Yes → XTC - Is This Pop?

• Synth Twang → George Michael - I Want Your Sex

• Laugh 1 → New Order - Confusion

• More Fun with Trumpets → Oingo Boingo - Little Girls

• Cash Register → Pink Floyd - Money

• Hey, Hey, Hey! → Sananda Maitreya (Terence Trent D'arby) - Who's Loving You

According to The Secret History of Mac Gaming, one of the sound engineers shared with Prince that this game sampled his songs. "He reportedly thought it was funny."