Social puzzle game Candy Crush Saga is huge on smartphones and tablets, and we know a fair few children play it. The people behind Moshi Monsters have clearly noticed too.

Mind Candy – that’s them – quietly released a brand new Moshi Monsters game for iPhone and iPad earlier this year, which uses similar ‘match-three’ gameplay to Candy Crush Saga.

It’s called Moshling Rescue, and involves matching colourful “gummies” in lines of three or more to make them disappear, rescuing Moshling characters as you work your way through the levels.

I spent an hour playing it last night after discovering it on the App Store: it’s easy to pick up and play, with different flavours of puzzle – rescue, dig, clear and treasure for example – to make the game varied.

Moshling Rescue also ties in to Facebook – “it is designed for those over 13 years’ old,” explains the App Store listing, even though Apple has given it a 9+ age rating – to compare scores with friends and offer them help when needed.

If you’re wondering: yes, like Candy Crush Saga and many similar games, Moshling Rescue is free to download and play, but uses in-app purchases.

Specifically, the game allows virtual jellybeans to be spent on extra lives and ‘shield boosts’. Players can ask friends to give them jellybeans, or buy them with another virtual currency – diamonds – which are bought using real money.

They range from 69p for 100 diamonds to £59.99 for 10,500 diamonds (“best value” as the in-app store puts it). If you have children playing this who are over 13, they’re presumably old enough to have the ‘don’t spend 60 quid on diamonds without telling us’ conversation with. If younger, though, you should make sure your in-app purchase restrictions are set.

Should you be concerned? The worry about this particular game genre is that if it suddenly takes a big leap up in difficulty – think of seemingly-impossible Candy Crush Saga levels that appear by surprise – it may be pushing players towards making those in-app purchases.

In a game based specifically on a children’s brand like Moshi Monsters, that wouldn’t be good. I’m going to spend a bit of time playing Moshling Rescue to see how it stands – so far there hasn’t been anything like this happening, but I’m only 10 levels in.

Update: Mind Candy have been in touch to let us know that Moshling Rescue is aimed at “adult casual game players” rather than children: the game isn’t being marketed through the existing Moshi Monsters kids’ channels, and there won’t be any merchandise for it aimed at children. So this is one for the parents, seemingly!

Moshling Rescue is a free download for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, although it can also be played on Facebook from computers.

Read about more Moshi Monsters apps for kids on Apps Playground, and check out our 100 Best iPad Apps of 2013 e-book – £1.99 from Apple’s iBooks Store