Download: Raise a mountain top menagerie in Tiny Monsters

Tiny Monsters is one of the more attractive micro management games we've seen for the iPad. The graphics are beautiful and there is plenty to keep gamers of all ages occupied.

Installation is through the App Store and there is no charge to start playing. You'll quickly find that there are plenty of things to buy with real money in game, but more on that later.

The idea of the game is to develop your monster collection housed on a mountain top. Monster eggs are selected and, once incubated for long, enough hatch into habitats. There are five different habitats for monsters: fire, earth, plants, electric and ice.

The Monsterpedia provides background stories for the monsters and there are quests to help explore the different monsters.

Monsters earn coins that can then be spent on more habitats or other structures for your mountain top. The other important use for coins is to buy food to feed your monsters. As they feed, the monsters grow.

Once old enough monsters can be cross bred, combining the different habitat types. Some of these monsters can be bought for diamonds, the other in game currency, avoiding the wait an occaisional uncertainty as to which monster will appear.

Diamonds are earned when you level up but very, very slowly. When you only earn a couple of diamonds a level and the special monsters range between 19 and 375, you'll soon find yourself going to the store. Diamonds can also be used to skip waiting for buildings or monsters. The problem here is that diamonds are expensive. 10 diamonds cost £1.49, 300 diamonds £34.99 and 680 diamonds an eye-watering £69.99. If you're going to play this game with children make sure they don't know your iTunes password. It is also possible to buy coins and food.

The cost of the in game currency aside, this is a great game and well worth a go.