Time and time again we have seen Facebook games used as a catalyst to market something greater. With the tremendous growth of the platform, it can hardly be unexpected, but this time the company behind the game is Trident with the new Facebook title Trident White Puzzle Smash, developed by Funtank.

The game itself is quite simple, centered around the casual block-breaker puzzle style. Moderately addicting for those who enjoy that sort of game, it’s an app that doesn’t feel terribly different from its predecessors, yet the developers do make an effort to try and socialize the game in more ways than just standard leaderboards. Moreover, it’s a branded title that makes a much better attempt than many we have seen in the past.

Puzzle Smash is a game of only one objective: Beat your high score. Pairs of different colored blocks fall from the sky, Tetris-style, and players must orient them into blocks or rectangles of at least 2×2. Doing so will multiply their value when broken.

In order to break them, one of the blocks in each falling pair will periodically be a colored orb with a Trident flavor (peppermint, spearmint, etc.). These will break all blocks of the same color, so long as they are touching and, in some way, connected to the initial block hit with the orb.

This makes the basics of the game. Coupled with a Trident brand orb that works on all colors, and an every increasing speed, players attempt to last as long as possible before their stack of blocks reaches the top of the board and the game ends.

On the social side of things, the primary mechanics are typical, consisting of leaderboards. However, what is respectable with Puzzle Smash is that while leaderboards are a proven standard for games of this style, Funtank is not satisfied with it alone and actually adds some bonuses for playing with friends. It isn’t much, but for each friend added, players will receive a 2% bonus to their final score when they finally lose.

On an additional note, it is also worth mentioning that players that “Like” the game will also receive in-game power-ups that will allow them to use some “emergency” items that will break all blocks of their corresponding color.

Technically speaking, there isn’t anything wrong with Puzzle Smash, but it’s also not the most innovative or addicting game either. Granted, it might be a ton of fun for those that enjoy block-breaking puzzlers or others of that type, but there’s nothing terribly new to be had here save the added social elements beyond leaderboards. All the same, it’s a game that does not appear to be intended as solely a game, but rather, it’s a title intended to capture further customers for Trident gum itself. That in mind, the game marks a significantly better attempt at other similarly goal-oriented titles in the past such as LEGO Indiana Jones and Emusicon Pinball. It’s still not the best, but it is nice to see the quality of branded games improving.