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You're the kind of stupid that makes a website that's just one big flash object with no links to non-flash content. As much as I hate to hate on them, Toys for Bob has been the same kind of stupid for almost a decade, so at least you're in good company.

Agreed. One of the worst webpages in existence is for my favorite game development company. Their site looks blank to me right now, and does on most of my computers. How could they not have a flash-free version? They are losing out on google/bing indexing, iPhone traffic, and some regular desktop traffic too (not everyone installs flash).

To my knowledge, two companies have expressed an interest in creating a sequel to Star Control II - The Ur-Quan Masters: Toys for Bob (the creators of Star Control and Star Control II; warning: site is entirely Flash) and Stardock (better known for strategy games like Galactic Civilizations).

Toys for Bob holds the copyright to Star Control II and its characters, which allowed them to open source the game (or, to be exact, a crude attempt to get the enhanced 3DO CD version to run on Windows, which has since been cleaned up and gained additional features such as network play) as The Ur-Quan Masters a few years ago (code under GPL 2 or later, content under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5).

The reason for dropping the name "Star Control" and using the subtitle is simple: the Star Control trademark is owned by Atari (a.k.a. Infogrames, who bought Star Control's publisher Accolade).

In other words, TFB has all the rights to make a sequel except the name (in fact, with the open sourcing, anyone could create a sequel, albeit non-commercially). However, since TFB is owned by Activision, they can't work on whatever they like (without being fired). TFB have stated on their news page that they need help convincing Activision to finance a sequel to Star Control II; they have the will, the skill and the rights to do so (albeit not the name, but that's secondary).

No. Alex Ness posted this on his blog, and indicated that people should email him with expressions of interest.

From http://www.toysforbob.com/database/tfb_news.html (April 11, 2006)
"But maybe, just maybe, if enough of you people out there send me emails requesting that Toys For Bob dod a ligitimate sequel to Star Control 2, I'll be able to show them to Activision, along with a loaded handgun, and they will finally be convinced to roll the dice on this thing."

He also reposted a link to the gamespy petition:

http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/petit ion/

Apr 11 2006
Star Control Sequel - Get Out Of My Dreams..

You know what I haven't done in a while? Written any news. Some things have happened but nothing you would be that interested in. We've definitely hired a bunch of people in the last 6 months (See? I told you so.)

The game we've been working on for about a year is scheduled to come out in early November or so. What game are we working on? That's the funny thing. I can't tell you. I don't even know myself. What I mean is, "I don't even know, (comma) myself." Actually that doesn't make sense if I write it that way. I just didn't want you to think that I didn't know myself, even though I really don't. I wanted you to think that I didn't know what game we're working on, even though I really do.

Apparently, Activision is going to finally reveal the secret identity of our game at E3, which is about a month away. Hopefully I will know what game it is beforehand because I am supposed to be demo-ing it down at the show. If you're down there and want to say hi, just try and find me. You never will. I'm extremely difficult to find. And I won't answer to my own name (Alex). If you think you see me and call out a different name, like say, Stefan Jacobs, look for the person that doesn't turn around. That person is probably me. You may think that makes me fairly easy to find but again, you are wrong (I can't remember the first time you were wrong but I'm assuming it's happened at least once). Most people, you will notice, will turn around to the name Stefan Jacobs.

So it's taken me my usual 3 paragraphs to get to the real meat of this news article. And here it comes: A Star Control Sequel. We (I) want us to do a Star Control sequel. Back in the early 90s, Paul and Fred and some other people made Star Control 2. Personally, I thought it was pretty amazing. It was like a drug to me. Not quite as much like a drug as the drugs were but very, very close. I know there are other people that loved this game too. Sometimes you email me and ask if we'll ever do a sequel. And I always tell you that I wish we could do a sequel but it's very hard to convince large publishing companies that a new Star Control would sell very well in the current video game market. But maybe, just maybe, if enough of you people out there send me emails requesting that Toys For Bob do a legitimate sequel to Star Control 2, I'll be able to show them to Activision, along with a loaded handgun, and they will finally be convinced to roll the dice on this thing.

Will you do that for me? Your old pal, Alex? If you were working at a video game development company who had 2 founders that had worked on a classic, epic space role-playing and combat game years ago for which you had recently re-acquired rights to and were hoping to convince your new parent company to let you make a sequel by asking for the public to send in requests for said sequel, I'd email you. There's actually even a petition online. I have no idea how to sign it but here it is: http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/petit ion/petition_signed.shtml

And now download this great game!

What awesome news! I've been into old games lately (such as Star Control II/Ur Quan Masters). I wonder if Paul Reiche III had anything to do with this (since he had quite a bit to do with the free release of SC2/Ur Quan Masters) and was on the design team for each of these games. Man, Archon was a sweet game. I can't wait until they release it...with network support, noless!

the remake of Pirates! is currently under development by Firaxis Games. It should see a release later this year.

You might want to contact Toys for Bob for an update for Archon as well as the (mentioned below) Mail Order Monsters as Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III may be able to help there. They were the ones who released their Star Control II to us as the somewhat updated Ur Quan Masters.

Did you read on toysforbob.com that they tried to sell the Ultron on eBay? I'm pissed I missed that auction. That could have really fixed my life.....

I'd highly recommend Star Control 2, by Toys for Bob, as a classic game. In fact, I consider it my favorite game of all time. It has some RPG elements, a great real-time space combat system which can even be played human vs. human, instead of a lame Final Fantasy battle system, and totally non-linear storyline progression. The majority of the game is conversation with aliens.

After leaving your colony and returning to Earth in a mysterious alien ship, you find that in the 20 years you have been cut off from what's going on outside the colony planet, the Alliance lost the war, and the human race is now imprisoned by a slave shield surrounding Earth.

There is a starbase in orbit of Earth. After your first task of making contact with them, it is up to you to find out how you can defeat the Ur-Quan. Not knowing anything about the spheres of influence yet, you just look at your starmap, and plot a course in any direction, hoping the alien races you meet are friendly...

Most tasks aren't necessary to complete the game, but instead get you something that will help you out a lot, like a useful device or an alliance with a race, allowing you to build their ships and use them in combat, or even just information.

Originally created as a PC DOS game, it was later ported to the 3DO console where they added 12+ hours of speech, CG opening and ending sequences, and a few other enhancements.

The 3DO version with all the enhancements, voice included, is now being ported back to Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc, and will be released as freeware. So the freeware version isn't available yet, but you'll want to keep checking the fan site for updates.

Just an FYI, Accolade doesn't actually own anything other than the name "Star Control". Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford were smart enough to hang on to their universe and creatures in the game, so they can do whatever they like with them, afaik. If you take a look at their page (the above mentioned www.toysforbob.com) they are working on a game called "Minion" that they describe a "fantasy Star Control 2."