Can you tell us why you're excited about the Jericho game?

Barker: I'm excited about the game because the story's fresh, and because with it we have a greater chance of scaring the shit out of players around the world. I'd been carrying the idea of Jericho around in my head before I'd even talked to anyone about the project, so I feel very close to it. I'd love people to think of Jericho the way I thought of - let's say Alien - when that movie was about to come out. Teased with glimpses but never given the whole monstrous truth until the story was told on the screen. Jericho should be the same - unique and terrifying.

Do your games tie in with your books? Is there an overall coherent universe to your writing that gamers should be made aware of?

Barker: No, my games don't tie up with my books - at least, so far. Jericho is the first games project I've been connected with which I really feel might be explored in novels and comic-books - I have a huge passion for comic-books! I've liked the Jericho idea since it first came into my head because it marries up two of my passions: history and horror. Our protagonists' journey through slices of other times in the game, their progress bringing them steadily closer to the Great Adversary who sits at the center of this Labyrinth of Time.

There's some pretty horrific stuff in Jericho - is there anything you'd consider too violent to go into the game?

Barker: There is some intense and gory material in Jericho, but I've always believed that one of the tasks a maker of horror stories in any medium has is to take his or her audience into areas of taboo; places where they wouldn't have dared to venture had the game not obliged them to trespass on treacherous ground. And in so trespassing, inviting the wrath of some creature that they've never encountered before.