Country Quartet: Free Geography Card Game for Android

Quick facts about Country Quartet

What it is	A quartet card game with country cards, played against the computer
The deck	52 countries in 13 quartets of four, from the Nordic Countries to Oceania
Players	You and three computer opponents, each named after a famous physicist
Designed for	Ages 7–14, and playable for any adult who likes geography. Rated Everyone on Google Play
Device	Android phones running Android 8.0 or later
Price	Free, with no in-app purchases
Ads	None
Account	None: no sign-in and no email address
Internet	Not needed. The app requests no permissions at all
Data	Nothing is collected; see the privacy section below
On Google Play	Listed under the developer name Mindgrid Games

How to play

Each turn you ask one opponent for a country you need. A right guess lets you go again; a wrong one means you draw a card and your turn ends. The steps below follow the game's own How to Play screen.

1. 1. You get six cards. Every card is a country. The rest of the deck becomes a draw pile.
2. 2. Every country is in a region of four. The game sorts your hand into regions for you, and each region has its own colour.
3. 3. Ask another player for a card. Pick a region you have started, choose a country you still need from it, and ask one opponent.
4. 4. Right guess? Go again. If they have the card, you take it and keep your turn. If not, you take one card from the deck and play passes on.
5. 5. Collect all four to score. A full region is a quartet and scores one point. When all 13 quartets have been collected, the player with the most wins; a tie is a draw.

There is no timer, and after every move the game says what happened, in green when it went your way and red when it did not. A History button lists every move made so far, which is useful for remembering who asked for what.

An example quartet: the Nordic Countries

Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland make up the Nordic Countries quartet, the example the game itself uses to explain the rules. Hold any one of them and the card tells you the other three you still need.

Country	Capital on the card
Sweden	Stockholm
Norway	Oslo
Denmark	Copenhagen
Finland	Helsinki

The other twelve quartets are Southern Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, North Africa, East Africa, North America, South America and Oceania.

The country cards and the Countries browser

Every card shows a country's flag, capital city, official language and currency, plus a short fun fact. Under that is a “Collect all 4” checklist naming the whole quartet, with the current country starred. On the Sweden card, for example, the capital is Stockholm, the language Swedish and the currency the Swedish krona.

The Countries screen, on the main menu, lays out all 13 quartets and 52 countries outside a game. Tap any country to open its card. It works as a small picture atlas: a child can look up a card they were dealt, or browse a region before playing.

Activity: from the cards to a map

This takes about 15 minutes and turns one quartet into a map lesson. You need the game, a pencil, and a political world map or atlas, meaning one that shows the borders between countries.

1. 1. Pick a quartet. Start with one the child has just completed in a game, or with the Nordic Countries.
2. 2. Read the four cards. Open each country in the Countries browser and say its capital out loud.
3. 3. Find them on the map. Shade the four countries in one colour and mark each capital with a dot.
4. 4. Talk about the shape of the region. Which of the four share a border? Which lies farthest north? Check the answers in the atlas, not the game.

No political map to print? The world maps in the free geography puzzle pack show coastlines only, with no country borders, so use one alongside an atlas: instead of shading each country, mark a dot roughly where it lies and write its name beside it.

For flags instead of maps, print the flag matching worksheet. Nine of its twelve countries are also cards in Country Quartet: Japan, Sweden, Italy, Ukraine, Switzerland, Germany, Bangladesh, Greece and Finland. After the worksheet, find each one in the Countries browser and name its quartet. The other three, France, Ireland and Nigeria, are not in the game, which makes a good last question: which quartet would you put them in?

Privacy: the game and this website

Country Quartet has its own privacy policy, separate from this website's. The app collects nothing: it has no internet permission, no accounts, no advertising and no analytics. It stores only its settings and game statistics, on the phone itself, and Reset Statistics in its Settings screen clears them. Read the full Country Quartet app privacy policy, which is the one linked from its Google Play listing.

The mindgridbooks.com privacy page covers this website only: what it measures when you visit, and what happens if you sign up for one of our bonus packs.

More geography to try

• Geography quiz for kids — 30 printable questions in three levels, with explained answers.
• Geography brain teasers for kids — five puzzles to read on screen, with hints and answers.
• How to teach kids world flags — the eight flag families, and the pairs everyone mixes up.
• Geography books for kids — our five books, from a 193-country flag guide to a book of 100 geography puzzles.

If the cards make a child curious about the rest of the world, Flags of the World gives all 193 UN member countries a page each, with the flag, capital, language and currency, the same facts the cards use.