Which local co op games would you recommend?

Stardew valley, the new update 1.4 just added local coop. It's a great game and with a friend it's even better

In Red Rope you are stuck together, and you have to coordinate your movement to be effective. Not sure if that's "friendly" enough, but I liked it.

A Way Out, Trine series (minus 3rd part), technically Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons can be played local co-op, ibb & obb.

Overcooked, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Moving Out, Magicka

Minecraft is a big must for co-op, my wife and I have been playing it together for nearly 9 years!

Portal 2 is great co-op, and with the workshop maps, it is endless fun.

Portal Knights (another voxel like Minecraft but has classes).

Stardew Valley, for a more laid back approach.

Minecraft Dungeons is a amazing starter for Diablo-like hack and slash titles, amazing co-op (Lan or split screen)

Left 4 Dead 2 is good for quick games of co-op

Overwatch/TF2 if you like to dabble more in to pvp

Tabletop Simulator (ENDLESS BOARDGAMES!!!)

Golf with your Friends is a fun put-put golf arcade game

Binding of Isaac is fun 2 player as well, with the co-op partner helping with attacking also

Hammerwatch is a great LAN/Splitscreen 2d Gauntlet title I highly recommend also with tons of options to be newcomer friendly, to the hardest of hardcore players.

Trine series is a blast with 2 to 3 players and has a lot of great puzzles and battles, and item collection to go about (Had more fun with this over Guacamelee tbh)

ANY, and I mean ANY Lego game is amazing to play with a partner. Don't be ashamed! Lego games are amazing co-op titles and offer a lot of teamwork situations and endless fun!!

The Lego games can be fun co-op, but I would recommend to wait for a sale. The Trine games also work pretty well. Serious Sam games are a lot of fun co-op as well.

Streets of Rogue, 1-4 player coop, both local and online supported, best coop mode I have played in a long time, will let one player use the keyboard while the other uses a controller as well.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/512900/

I was gonna say Shiftlings but you already listed it, if you haven't given it a try I recommend it a lot, is really fun. Other fun co-op games could be Castle Crashers and Human Fall Flat

Beavers Be Dammed
Déjà vu

have you tried some Couch-Coop games? these are my favorite :'3
Overcooked! 2 fun and chaotic management game
Castle Crashers from the same people that made Battleblock Theater ^^
Aegis Defender 2d platforming and tower-defend game, quite hardcore at the latter part
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes not really couch coop but it works fine with one laptop

And these are some of my favorite Coop Multiplayer Games, but requires a copy for each player
Ibb and Obb very cute 2d platforming game
Human Fall Flat hilarious 3d platforming game

That's it for now, I'm not sure if you and your partner are into playing agaist each other yet :'3 so I'll leave some reccomendations for those later. I hope you'll find something for you and your partner :3

Not sure what exactly you mean by friendly (easy or non violent) ?

Shank (first game story can be played solo or local co-op, second game only some kind of arcade mode is played in solo or local co-op ,, story is only solo) side-scroll beat'em up
A Way Out same dev as It takes two, so worth it
Unravel 2 you asked for teamwork

Overcooked 1 and 2, Trine 1, 2, 3 and 4, Regular Human Basketball,, Almost all recent LEGO games, Gang Beasts, Rocket League, Stikbold. They are all awesome Local COOP games or games with a local COOP-mode where you work together :D

Human: Fall Flat, ibb&obb, Pid, Degrees of Separation, Biped, Trine games, LEGO games

Cook, Serve, Delicious hasn't been mentioned yet. Definitely a favorite here. Haven't played the third one yet, and the gameplay differences between 1 and 2 might make them both worth trying. Typically super cheap on a good sale.

A Hat in Time
Crypt of the NecroDancer
The Trine series
Wizard of Legend
Hammerwatch
Never Alone
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Death Squared

Tomorrow (25-3-2021) we have offers in coop games bc steam update remote play to linksThe source is this Stardew valley epic coop game other source

Kingdom Two Crowns,
Earth Defense Force 4.1 and 5
broforce
the bug butcher
children of morta
crypt of necrodancer
fight n rage
forced
helldivers
how to survive
hyper light drifter
ibb & obb
it came from space and ate our brains
magicka
mercenary kinds
neon chrome
nex machina
riddled corpses
river city random
sine mora ex
skullgirls
pixeljunk monsters
renegade ops
super cyborg
eye divine cybermancy
risk of rain
tales of series, berseria, zestiria

Overcooked
Speedrunners
Looking forward to It Takes Two as well
Outland
Ibb & Obb
Broforce
Worms (any of the series I guess)
Portal 2 (I think there's a local coop mode)
Stardew Valley
Trine

That's it for now...Hope it will help and is not all already said.

Some really fun games so far but I want to add two that are great to play with a beginner gamer and seriously fun, way more fun to play co-op too:
Chariot
The Cave

Also adding
Giana Sisters Twisted Dreams
Think of the Children for some madness
but they might be a little hard for a beginner so maybe keep those for later.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.

You can play together on Battlenet. If you'd rather play with your local characters, you can play privatized games in open Battlenet. If you're running mods or PlugY, then you can play over TCP/IP. (And yes, you can run Diablo 2 as a non-Steam game.)

View attached image.

Castle Crashers
Dusty Revenge:Co-Op Edition
Shank
LEGO games

39 Days to Mars
The Adventure Pals
Unrailed!
Never Alone
Caveblazers (but this game is hard to beat maybe something for when your partner is more used to playing games)

Castle Crashers is pretty good (and it is from the creator of Battleblock Theater).

Knigh Squad has both coop and vs., it is one of my favorite games to play with my dad.

Monster Prom and Monster Camp are also pretty cool (these are more VN/RPG/Story-heavy oriented).

Death Squared is really nice.

Guacamelee 1 and 2 are really really reaaaally fun.

Speedrunners is a vs game, but still nice as well.

Almost every single LEGO game is a nice coop. Take a look into which franchise/concept you like the most and go for it. My personal favorites are LOTR, HP 1-4 and 5-7 and SW: TCS

i know it's an oldie, but i recently replayed portal 2 with a buddy and it still holds up really well, especially with all the workshop levels.