As the head man in charge of Club Penguin, Disney Interactive Worlds Vice President and General Manager Chris Heatherly has a problem many people would love to have.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of pop. What kid (or adult) doesn’t dream of a rogue’s life on the high sea? Max’s Pirate Planet – A Board Game Adventure is a board game-style title that gives players a whole planet to play pirate on. Youngsters will have a great time, though their parents may quickly become bored with the tedious mini-games.

Batman made his debut in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Ten years later, Lego began selling interlocking bricks. The two franchises are among the most successful in history, but more impressive is how they’ve managed to stay relevant through decades of changing taste. Many mobile titles attempt to emulate their genre counterparts on the consoles, but Lego Batman: DC Super Heroes is a full console game. Can the world’s greatest detective put the pieces together?

An ancient house and a group of strangers brought together under mysterious circumstances: that's the set-up for any number of horror movies, but it's also the backdrop for something less sinister and more intellectually stimulating in The Time Tribe. This free-to-play, point-and-click adventure is suitable for all but the youngest gamers, and it uses a variety of means to tell a pretty engrossing story.

Have you ever dreamed about programming your very own video game? With the rise of the indie game developer and one-man gaming studios in 2013, this fantasy has never seemed more achievable. The only problem is that most gamers don’t know a thing about programming or writing code, and the ones that do take that extra step to learn them are quickly turned off by the monotony of text-based coding software. I could write an entire algorithm for how many times I fell asleep in my C++ programming class in high school.

On the surface, Purple Cape seems to have a lot of promise, combining physics-style touchscreen gameplay with platforming action. Unfortunately, no matter what color the cape, players will more likely be left just seeing a lot of red by the time they're finished with it.

When evil threatens the innocent, Buzz Lightyear is bound by honor and Star Command to quell the danger. Bonus points if he destroys as much property as possible while restoring the peace. Toy Story: Smash It is a 3D physics game in the style of Boom Blox that has lots of the things kids love best: The cast of the Toy Story movie, great visuals, and an excuse to fling stuff at block towers. 

The mobile format is a natural evolution for old-fashioned game books. Much as I love them, I have to recognise that the market is partially driven by the nostalgia of grown-up nerds like me who enjoyed them in paper form as teenagers. But here’s a novel idea: a gamebook app aimed not at reminiscing adults, but actual children.

We’ve known Disney was at work on a project called Disney Infinity for quite some time now, but it wasn’t until today that the company unveiled what exactly that is. In a nutshell, it’s a multi-platform, Skylanders-esque experience that takes characters and elements from several Disney and Pixar films and places them in the same universe(s).

You got learning in my online gaming! Before you accuse me of the reverse and we end up in a Reese's style standoff, just know that either way could be used to describe Animal Jam. This kid-friendly multiplayer browser game definitely has an ulterior educational motive, but it's not out to cram anyone's head full of facts without first making sure they have some fun.