His career started in the pen and paper RPG industry, where he collaborated with artist Erol Otus on games such as Dungeons & Dragons and Gamma World.

He then transitioned into video games, working with Jon Freeman to establish Free Fall Associates and developed titles like Mail Order Monsters, World Tour Golf, and Archon.

Reiche also invented the race of Thri-kreen mantis warriors for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which debuted in the second set of Monster Cards.

[8][9] Reiche and Ford both shared a love of Jack Vance in both their formative years, and took inspiration from exaggerated societies taken to their extremes, and intelligent characters committed to an interesting agenda.

[2] Another friend, Erol Otus, is described as one of the broadest contributors in terms of different aspects of Star Control II, including illustrations for the game manual, in-game art, music, text, and even voice-acting.

[11] After the success of Star Control II, Accolade offered Reiche and Ford the same budget to produce another sequel, which they turned down to pursue other projects.

[12] After completing Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure (under the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater license), Reiche had all-but released Madagascar when publisher Activision fully acquired his company, in May 2005.

[19] The series was one of the first and most successful to utilize the toys-to-life feature, and the soaring demand would challenge Reiche to release Skylanders: Trap Team on 10 platforms simultaneously, in 2014.

[4] After years of requests from fans,[20] Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III announced they would be working on a direct sequel to the story of Star Control II.