Novelist Barker makes video game debut

The new video game “Clive Barker’s Undying” hits stores Tuesday, but the gay horror novelist confesses to E! Online that he knew “zero” about video games before starting the project. The game is set in 1920s Ireland, and Barker says that creating video games is just another way to tell stories. “It’s a completely different discipline, and one of the reasons I got involved was because I wanted to educate myself. I’m a storyteller who’s moved from theater to books to paintings to movies. I’m always interested in finding new ways to tell stories.” Designers at DreamWorks and Electronic Arts had already been working on the project for seven months before Barker came aboard, and he immediately made some major changes, including getting rid of the lead character. “I said, ‘Make him somebody I want to sleep with,’ ” says Barker. “What we had before was this kind of big fellow with all these tattoos, but there wasn’t any charisma there.” The game now features Patrick Galloway, a swashbuckling lead whom Barker finds “very sexy.”