Team Pac-Man is hoping to take a chomp out of the growing casual game market with several upcoming games for both iPhone and iPad. Namco is grabbing hardcore gamers turned casual with Splatterhouse for iPhone. The TurboFrafx-16 throwback game will be coming to mobile and iPhone gamers, coinciding with the large-scale console gore-fest release. Pac-Man Kart Rally hits mobile and Android phones in celebration of Pac-Man's 30th anniversary. This game is sure to delight fans of Mario Kart who don't have the opportunity to hit Bowser and Wario with a turtle shell, while traveling on the train. But, what about the iPad? The iPad marketplace still doesn't have a large library of iPad specific HD games. Team Pac-Man strikes with two upcoming iPad exclusives, targeting fans of gem, puzzle and hidden object games.

House of Glass - iPad

House of Glass is a tangram game wrapped up in a pseudo story. The game begins with a forgettable letter that introduces you to a mysterious house, which you must puzzle-solve your way through. Navigating through this seemingly haunted house is quaint and alluring given the iPad's rich visual display. But, the game isn't really about the house. It's about the puzzles.

A tangram is a geometric puzzle, where one shape is cut into several other shapes. Like Humpty Dumpty, your goal is to put these shapes back together. As you do so, you will unlock doors and secret passageways on your way through the House of Glass.

The premise is simple, but the game is quite addictive. Each puzzle piece can be rotated in a 360-degree space. The puzzle pieces are generally not symmetrical. Each piece can be over two geometrical shapes deep. However, you have to rotate them so that they piece together with other shapes and create one flat 2D shape. This game is all about patience and perseverance.

Lost in Time: The Clockwork Tower - iPad

On the surface, Lost in Time: The Clockwork Tower is a hidden object game. However, unlike most hidden object games, the story in this game actually seems both interesting and well thought out. There is also a touch of puzzle gaming that will delight casual gamers.

The game starts off with Eliza visiting a damaged clock tower. Strangely, when you look down at the town below, her village is also designed in the layout of a clock. It's like a Da Vinci Code conspiracy that would make Dan Brown proud. Eliza learns that everyone in town has become trapped in time. Guess what she has to do next? Eliza must travel to different points in time trying to free her trapped friends.

The game employs a broken pocket watch as your main instrument of time travel. As you collect copper gears, by searching through the clock tower or in various hidden object searches, you will be able to piece together the pocket watch and unlock new powers. One power allows you to locate flux objects that are trapped in time. Other powers allow you to free your friends trapped in time stasis.

Throughout the game you will collect pieces of coal. Okay science major, you've got some coal and the ability to travel through time. What do you do with the coal? One of the pocket watch's powers is the ability to age an object through time. So your coal can eventually became a sparkly diamond. You can also collect diamonds throughout the game. Diamonds are used as currency in the neighborhood market. You'll have to buy several items necessary to advance through the game. The market isn't heavily used, but it is present enough for major quest pieces.

The game is fully voiced to help bolster the story. Characters you will meet will tell you what you need to do in order to free them. For example, one character may require flowers to be freed while another character will require tickets. Besides the hidden object component to the game there are jigsaw puzzles, a mousetrap game, peg jumping, and time puzzles.

Lost in Time: The Clockwork Tower and House of Glass are shaping (no pun intended) up to be two excellent games from Namco for iPad. Hopefully, more game publishers will follow suit with Namco and create more intriguing story-based hidden-object quests like The Clockwork Tower. Just because we're casual gamers doesn't mean we don't like a good story.