Steph Thirion was one of the iPhone's great early developers. Eliss [iTunes Link] was one of our favorite games back in the early days of the App Store. Since then, Thirion started working on a game called Faraway that was initially shown back at GDC 2010, but then fell off the map entirely. Now, Thirion is back and gave colleagues and reporters a glimpse at the upcoming game at the Game Developers Conference.

Thirion's latest creation is called Faraway and casts the player as a comet zooming through interstellar space. Players have to manipulate gravity in order to slingshot around stars. There is a line that follows you around and attaches to stars every time you enter their orbit. The goal is to create constellations by connecting the lines between stars.

It's more than a little bit off-the-wall in its design, but we'd expect nothing less from the developer of the almost completely abstract, Eliss. However, the one thing the two seem to have in common is a vague fascination with the heavens. Eliss was abstract for the most part, but had a design that begged comparisons to heavenly bodies like stars, planets and black holes.

Don't be worried by the fact that the game was delayed by a full year (big delays can often mean there is something that just isn't working in the game's design.) Thirion has said that the delay was caused by work on other projects which took him off Faraway's development for several months at a time. That said, Thirion has said he is back on the project and hopes to release it soon.