This game reminds me a lot of Little Passports’ Where To?. Not in gameplay really, but in feel. Both games are competitive, but not cutthroat. Both explore geography, but Where To? is worldwide, while Dad in Chad focuses on Africa. In addition, both games include fun little snippets describing an activity in different locations. Just enough to give you a taste for the culture.

Dad in Chad is composed of a board with all the countries of Africa, plus a track around the outer edge. Each player  (up to 4) has a pawn and 25 pegs in their color. The pawns are moved around the outside track, and where you land each turn determines what you can do on your turn. The pegs are used to mark which countries you have.

These are the activity cards. As you can see, some are specific to a single country, while others are for multiple countries. You only need 1 of the countries to make a match.

There are also 3 decks of cards: activity cards, country cards, and travel cards. The travel cards are composed of planes, boats, and cars (don’t shuffle these; we had to re-sort them after I shuffled them). There is 1 country card per country in Africa, with the exception of South Africa and Chad. South Africa is the start card, and Chad is the end card; each player receives one of each. So, there are 52 other cards in the deck.

Country cards for each of the 54 countries in Africa.

Most of the activity cards have a unique activity you can do in one or more countries in Chad. There are also a few power cards, which instruct the player to draw 4 cards: a plane card and the top card in the activity, country, and country discard stacks.

No need to shuffle the travel cards; you’ll be instructed which type to grab.

The goal is to match up countries with activities. When you make a match, read the activity card out loud and flip your peg on that country over, so the white end is showing. This locks it in place so it can’t be traded or removed. Once you get at least 3 matches, it’s time to figure out how to get Dad back to Chad!

Use the travel cards to indicate how Dad gets from country to country. The boat cards can only be used between coastal or island countries. (So you can’t have him take a boat to Chad, because Chad is landlocked.) The car can only be used to drive between connecting countries. The plane is the easiest to use, as it can go between any two countries.

The first person to get at least 3 matches and complete their route wins!

There is also a cruise ship that is moved around the African coast. When it lands on what the game has designated as a major port, one of the non-matched pegs on a coastal country (not South Africa) is returned to the player and their matching country card is discarded. Luckily, we haven’t had to do this very often, but I don’t think I like it. If it were a more frequent occurrence, we’d probably remove it from the game, but for now, it’s just a little annoying.

The inside of the box does have some wasted space.