If you have family visiting for a Thanksgiving feast and a holiday weekend of relaxation and shopping, there's a good chance the younger demographic will be looking for entertainment. If they have their iPads, they'll likely retreat into YouTube watching mode, but you can use that screen to bring the family together for some fun game time as well.
I rounded up a handful of games that should deliver entertainment for groups of kids and adults alike. The difficult task is finding games that are available on a wide variety of devices and offer crossplay support – meaning you can play together, even if you are on PlayStation 4 and the kids are on their iPads.
If you are just entertaining one or two kids, I also included a few games that they should get a kick out of, yet are only available on select machines. These games have different age ranges in mind, but can be fun for everyone.
The first three games I've selected are no-brainers, but as I've found, parents often don't know that they offer crossplay and don't need three or four of the same system to get kids playing together in their household.
I hope this list brings you some fun. Happy turkey day, everyone!
Roblox
Easily the best pick on this list, Roblox offers the widest variety of experiences to all age groups and is a phenomenal cooperative experience. It's also absolutely free! Getting the family together in any game doesn't take much effort at all.
Here are the Roblox games my daughter and I enjoy playing together: Adopt Me, a simulation about raising pets and furnishing a house. Meep City, another robust simulation with minigames, building aspects, and deep player interaction. Ghost Simulator, a game that takes after the Ghostbusters and pushes you to battle and catch as many ghosts as you can. Scuba Diving at Quill Lake, a relaxing underwater adventure. Hide and Seek Extreme, a surprisingly fun take on the childhood game that will have the family screaming as the person approaching their hiding spots.
For the slightly older ages: Sharkbite, a game about staying alive as long as possible as a player-controlled shark hunts them. Tower Defense Simulator, a great multiplayer combat experience against waves of enemies. Jailbreak, an intense and hilarious multiplayer game that lives up to its name. Piggy, a dark yet exciting fight for survival against evil pigs. There are also a variety of fun titles based on the hit Netflix show Squid Game.
And let the kids search for games that they want to play. Not all of them will be hits, but the process of finding something new to check out is a lot of fun in its own right.
Minecraft
Similar in conceptual design to Roblox, Minecraft allows groups of players to journey and survive together in thousands of worlds, many are made by players. Minecraft's basic building component tap into your creative side and embrace the true essence of teamwork as you build homes and societies together. Each player will need their own copy of the game on their respective devices, and most add-ons cost extra money. The official Toy Story, Star Wars, Magic Kingdom, and Jurassic World expansions are excellent, offering rewarding sightseeing and fun interaction points.
For any mode you are playing, if you are a newcomer to Minecraft, I recommend jumping into the settings and changing the play style to creative to remove the frustration of starting out and getting your bearings.
Fortnite
If you are looking to avoid violence, Fortnite isn't the game for you. It's a competitive shooter at heart that can be an absolute riot. I play it almost every night with my daughter, my girlfriend, and her two young sons. We're a well-oiled unit that enjoys the four-player squads option the most, but also spends some time in other modes if we have five players. The standard 100-player battle-royale experience remains the main attraction, and the kids absolutely love the variety of licensed skins that are available – from Marvel to Naruto.
The constant flow of new content makes this a game that we can't put down. We love being there on day one for the new seasons and enjoy seeing how they evolve every week. Ongoing games don't get much better than Fortnite, and it's also a great pick-up-and-play game for holidays like Thanksgiving. The one downside is it was recently pulled from iOS devices due to a legal battle between Apple and Epic Games, meaning iPad and iPhone are no longer in the mix. If you do play this game, make sure you mute other players in the options to avoid hearing random people say horrible things.
Super Mario Maker 2
This one will take some prep work, but if you have toddlers in the house or older kids who love a great challenge, you can create levels to challenge them in Super Mario Maker 2. For the toddlers, you can make death-free stages that helps them learn how to use a controller. For the older kids, seeing who can get through your creations the fastest is another fun way to pass the sticks. If you really get into this concept, you can also enter the creative mode to allow the kids to make levels for the adults to run through. Multiplayer modes for co-op and competitive play are also a part of the mix.