Our Story

Our Story – Starting Toys for Bob

Hi, my name is Paul Reiche, and I’ve had the amazing luck to make games my whole adult life. The photo below was taken over 30 years ago, showing me (suspenders) and Fred Ford (no suspenders) after having just completed Star Control¹® II: The Ur-Quan Masters.

I met Fred late in 1988 at a mutual friend’s (Greg Johnson’s) house, where we played board games and talked about the computer games we’d each made, and the ones we wanted to create someday. It turned out that Fred and I had attended UC Berkeley at the same time, both developing games on the side to pay for school. We had also both spent many, many hours playing Space Wars at Silver Ball Gardens, a pinball and video game arcade near campus, where the very first prototype of that stand-up arcade game had been installed. Most importantly, we’d also had recent stints at “real jobs,” and desperately wanted to get back to making games.

In 1989 we formed our partnership, Toys For Bob, and began making Star Control — a science-fiction action/strategy hybrid, which introduced the predatory Ur-Quan alien race and their Hierarchy of battle thralls. Star Control’s space combat was fast and furious, based on the foundation of classic Space Wars, but featuring entirely new ships for each alien race. The game also had a PvP mode called “Melee,” where friends could both crowd around the same keyboard and blast away at each other. The game was a success, and we knew there was a lot more to explore in the world of the Ur-Quan. So in 1990 we decided to make a sequel — a hybrid action/adventure game in which you explored a vast region of stars and planets in order to defeat the Ur-Quan once and for all. The player could explore thousands of new worlds, and talk with (or fight against) all kinds of aliens — some scary, some goofy, and others sexy, monstrous, or just plain freaky.

Over the next two and a half years, Fred and I (and several of our talented friends) dedicated heart and soul to making Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters. We knew the game could be something special — a genuine reflection of our shared love of bold adventure, intense battle, and wry humor, all set against a classic science-fiction backdrop. Fred even funded the last six months of development from his own savings, just so we could release the game exactly as we intended it. Those years were tough and lean, but we also knew that you don’t always have that kind of creative freedom, so we kept pushing. When we finally released The Ur-Quan Masters in 1992, it was received even better than we’d hoped for.  The game earned several awards, and more importantly, it found a spot in the hearts and minds of fans. Over the past 30 years, those fans have kept UQM alive with their artwork, novels, play-dough sculptures, 3D prints, Lego designs, tabletop games, and many other cool projects.  When we released our source code for use by fans, UQM was ported to run on almost every kind of computer in existence, with high-resolution graphics and awesome fan-created musical soundtracks. For any creative person, seeing others inspired by your work is just about the best thing in the world.

After releasing UQM in 1992, Fred and I moved on to other games and other publishers. Over the following decades, we grew Toys For Bob into a large and successful game studio, leading some of the most talented, hard-working, and kind developers in the industry.

Most of the time our jobs were fun and rewarding. But in our private conversations, Fred and I would always talk about our early years when we actually made something with our own hands. In 2009 we began working on the Skylanders series, where we invented the “Toys to Life” genre, a cool hybrid of games and toy heroes which entertained millions of folks around the world. When that series wrapped up, Fred and I decided that it was time to move on and let Toys For Bob thrive under a new generation of leaders.

We moved our computers into the small apartment above Fred’s garage and went back to making games with our own hands, doing so exactly the way we wanted — with no bosses or corporate priorities whatsoever. Picking a first project was the easiest part — after more than 30 years, we would finally repay our fans’ dedication by creating a sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters.

Our Story – From Toys for Bob to Pistol Shrimp

In 1989, Fred and Paul created Toys for Bob, a studio that made original games for virtually every platform. In 2011, they and their studio invented the “toys to life” genre with Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. The Skylanders series sold millions of games and hundreds of millions of interactive toys. Following this success, the pair decided to leave studio management in 2017 and return to development in order to finally work on a legitimate sequel to their breakout classic smash hit, The Ur-Quan Masters. Along with long-time co-workers Ken Ford and Dan Gerstein, they formed a new studio: Pistol Shrimp™ Games.

Games by the Team

• Archon: The Light and the Dark (1983)
• Pillbox (1983)
• Sea Bomber (1983)
• Murder on the Zinderneuf (1983)
• Archon II: Adept (1984)
• Ground Support
• Mail Order Monsters (1985)
• World Tour Golf (1986)
• Star Control (1990)
• Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters (1992)
• The Horde (1994)
• Pandemonium (1996)
• The Unholy War (1998)
• Little Witching Mischiefs – Majokko Daisakusen (1999)
• Disney’s 102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue (2000)
• Disney’s Extreme Skate Adventure (2003)
• Madagascar (2005)
• Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam (2006)
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
• Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure (2011)
• Skylanders Giants (2012)
• Skylanders Trap Team (2014)
• Skylanders Imaginators (2016)
• Ur-Quan Masters 2 (2021-)