Stryker graduated from Northfield Mount Hermon School in 1972, and received his bachelor's degree in physics from Brown University in 1977.

Stryker and Ken Wasserman wrote the real-time strategy game Flash Attack (1980) for the Commodore PET personal computer.

Later, Stryker hired Scott Brinker, originally of Moonshae Isles BBS, who created many of the early games available for MajorBBS, including Kyrandia.

Tim Stryker was a staunch advocate of electronic democracy, and began a movement called Superdemocracy to computerize voting and help people follow politics in cyberspace.

[4][5] Stryker suffered from severe depression, and was found dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound in the mountains of Colorado on 6 August 1996 at the age of 41.