Hey Chuck,
Hmmm, it seems the Ranger in Danger books are only available in Australia at this point. Some information about the background is available from their web site, but not much. I’ll see what I can do about getting you some more information. I just did a feature on the books for a kids magazine, including some short interviews with the creators.
With regards to Phoebe, as I said before, sorry for not writing down the errors at the time. I wasn’t playing with a beta testing hat on, just more out of interest. I’ll do something more comprehensive for you later in the week.
Also, if it’s really important that your stories are portable, you might consider Inform 7 again, using Ed Griffiths’ excellent extension, Adventure Book. Or, if you can wait a week or two, I should have my own extension completed, which builds on the Adventure Book extension and adds a few neat features (including accessibility options for blind/VI readers). If you have Lilly of the Forest available as a text file now, I’d happily convert it for you as an example file so you can see how it might work.
UPDATE:
Don’t worry about the Lilly text file…
I re-created the game myself using what I could copy-and-paste from the web version, making an assumption or two about the variables you’d used to flag certain responses.
Here (www.ifgamebooks.com/files/) is Lilly of the Forest as a .z8 code IF game (which you can play on pretty much any IF interpreter) and the source code as a .txt file, so you can see how easy it would be to write. (In fact, the whole purpose of the extension is to allow someone who doesn’t know Inform 7 to write an IF-driven CYOA/gamebook.)
If you have an iPhone (or similar), I strongly suggest you download the app Frotz, which would then give you a fully mobile version of Lilly of the Forest without the need to access the internet. I should also mention that I’ve turned on the inventory system so that you can see the Kite appear in there. Simply type INV or I at any time to bring up the inventory.
A story such as Lilly is very basic and would easily be recreated using Ed Griffiths’ Adventure Book extension. I’ve used mine–IF Gamebook–which, when finished, should open up a slew of features, including three parser options, a psychological inventory and more. It should even be able to recreate Phoebe (though the timed sequences might be interesting).
I should mention that I haven’t fully tested this version of Lilly of the Forest, just the main flags and paths. It would be a cinch to make changes and updates, though, so if I have made errors or incorrect link assumptions, let me know.