Why Dad in Chad?

We are two friends who came together to solve a problem; “How do you make learning geography engaging and fun?”  Well, fun takes time. It took us two years to make the magic happen and bring the razzle dazzle to world geography, one continent at a time, starting with Africa. Our game development included extensive play testing in public middle schools and high schools throughout New Jersey and New York City and with families, adults, and teens in their homes.

First, we created our own unique cartoon universe.  We made a whimsical deck of Country Cards where we took each country’s shape and drew an original cartoon around it and added a rhyming title to help players easily recognize the country, its name, shape, and relative size as it appears on the map.  For example, the country Chad looks like the profile of a man, put a cartoon bow tie under Chad and “poof” you get “Dad in Chad.” 

The most frequently asked question we get about our board game is: “Why is your game called Dad in Chad?” The simple answer is because the country Chad looks like the profile of a man’s head, which inspired us to create an entire cartoon universe around our original cartoon character named Dad in Chad.

Next, we made our board game come to life by creating the cartoon character named Dad in Chad. Through the Adventure Card deck, Dad has adventures in all of Africa’s 54 countries. Here players learn real facts about the culture, nature, and sports in Africa today. Playing Dad in Chad! is an immersive experience. Dad brings you into his cartoon universe, where you: feel the heat of the Saharan sun while riding a camel across Mali, smile and wave at the paparazzi as you walk the red carpet in Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood) or get swept up in the power and grit of a rugby match in Zimbabwe.

During the game, players embark on an adventure across Africa where they move their pawn around the perimeter of the game board collecting countries and adventures to create a route for Dad to travel from South Africa back home to Chad. At the same time, a luxury cruise ship continually circumnavigates the continent as an agent of chaos, allowing players to sabotage their opponents’ efforts to create a route for Dad. By strategically swapping countries players compete to be the first to get Dad back home to Chad and have 3 adventures along the way. 

As you explore the continent of Africa through the Dad in Chad! cartoon universe, we hope your African travels ignite a spark magic in your life as it has with ours.