Good games to play with kids on the same PC?

[BillButNotBen]

Update:

Due to the insane heat trapping us inside, we started on Lego Harry Potter, which I’d picked up a sale or two ago.
Daughter loves it, and has (mostly) gotten used to a gamepad very quickly. There is much humor to be had from pulling the pants off wizards, zapping everything and mainly accidentally zapping each other in the butts.

Unfortunately we then ran into an issue that I hadn’t foreseen. After almost an hour of play, which was more than I really wanted to do in a session anyway, we needed to stop and cook dinner, do homework, stop looking at screens etc… and then I realized that the checkpoints in this game are ridiculously far apart and there seemed to be no way to save and exit.
Hence we lost an hour’s progress and will have to start back at the beginning next time. Which is fucking evil in a game with long unskippable cutscenes which is apparently designed for you to spend hours pootling about and zapping everything and collecting everything.

If I can’t find a way around that issue, it’s going to be a nightmare.

[Blackice]

This is my biggest bugbear with the Marvel lego game as well, so I suppose they’re all the same. It really is a dumb choice for a game that is most likely going to be played by young kids.

[BillButNotBen]

The saving/checkpointing in Lego Harry Potter turns out to not be as bad as I’d feared.

It’s not all that clear when it saves, or what it saves, because the structure of these Lego games is a big confusing mish mash of a thing that’s meant to be played through linearly but also has a few somewhat hubs and also is designed to be replayed with different characters in the free play mode.

It appears to save and allow you to restart reasonably regularly but since any time you exit it gives you big warnings about losing all your progress on the “level”, and it’s not clear what a “level” actually is in this case, it’s kind of worrying.
That and the fact that you have to exit out FOUR times, and get warned about losing all your progress at least THREE times…

But hopefully it’s not too bad, and my daughter seems to be obsessed with it already… despite never having seen the movies or read the books.

[HappyNewWorld]

I think the adventure game Book of Unwritten Tales is quiet a good game to play together with kids.
The riddles are fun to solve together and it has quiet the adorable characters. My niece loved it.

[BillButNotBen]

Resurrecting this thread just because I found a useful website: Family Video Game Database.

Family Video Game Database - Guides, Ratings and Suggestions

[Sarfrin]

Since this has been reactivated by spam, I’m going to add Phogs to the list. No violence, very cute, fun to play.

[TheRed]

I think this is a good thread to maintain, given what I suppose to be the age of many RPS readers. I am certain some of these have been mentioned above, but a few that have been good with my oldest over the years (obviously these depend on age, but all are arguably suitable for children of some ages, given the cartoon nature or what is likely already out of the stable!):

Doorkickers: Action Squad
Castle Crashers
Overcooked
Ultimate Chicken Horse
Lego games - the ‘best’ one IMO was the first Marvel Superheroes game. Second also ok.
Sonic All-Stars Racing
Gold With Your Friends
Lethal League
Trine (1,2,4)
Knight Squad
Goatr Simulator
Speedrunners
Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime
Nidhogg (1&2)
Magicka

Broforce
Stick Fight
Pummel Party
Duck Game

These last four have given the most value by a distance, I think. I can’t rate Pummel Party highly enough, given the price and the support the devs have given it. It has the odd quirk, but mostly it’s fantastic!

[zagibu]

Roketz (ca. 1995) was also pretty fun: https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/roketz/
Supertuxkart also has split screen now.

Oh, and you can also play some singleplayer games together, like Incredipede, World of Goo, Into the Breach, etc. I always had great fun with my Bro playing those together, either taking turns or just discussing and planning while one player has the controls.