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.

Your books can end with apocalyptic drama; the unraveling of reality and the bleeding of worlds into each other - how will the climax of Jericho compare?

Barker: The climaxes of my books do indeed end with apocalyptic events and unraveling realities. There should be a taste of that same sublime destructiveness in Jericho. Of course, the ending depends entirely on how you play the game, but one way or the other you’ll get to see fire and blood.

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.