The Story Behind Rule Referee

By Autumn Wohlwend, published 2026-05-13. How a non-coder built an App Store app because nobody at game night could remember the rules.

There's a specific kind of frustration that happens at family game night. Someone draws a card, places a tile, or moves a piece and immediately someone else says, "Wait, can you actually do that?"

Then comes the rulebook. The twelve-page, tiny-fonted, technically-written rulebook that nobody read cover to cover before sitting down. Someone finds the right section. Someone else disputes the interpretation. The game pauses. The vibe dies.

I built Rule Referee because I got tired of that moment.

I'm Not a Developer

I want to be upfront about something: I'm not a software engineer. I don't have a computer science degree. Before I built Rule Referee, I had never shipped a native app.

What I am is someone who works in digital marketing, loves board games, and got obsessed with a problem.

I'm also someone who decided to build the solution anyway.

The Night That Started It

It was a game of Mexican Train Dominoes with my family. We hit a disputed rule and the rulebook didn't give us a clear answer. We spent more time debating the rule than playing the game.

I looked it up on my phone. Reddit threads. Forum posts. Old PDFs. Nothing was quick. Nothing was confident.

I thought: there should be an app for this. You ask a question in plain English. You get a plain English answer. No browsing, no debate, no paused game.

I didn't find that app. So I decided to build it.

Building Something I Didn't Know How to Build

I used AI tools throughout development, not as a shortcut, but as a way to close the gap between what I understood conceptually and what I could execute technically.

I didn't have AI write Rule Referee. I built the thing that AI helped me write.

There's a difference.

Every decision about how Rule Referee works, how it handles questions, how it formats answers, what it does when it doesn't know something, those were my decisions. I just had help implementing them.

The result is a custom engine I built myself. It's not AI. It matches player questions against a hand-built rulebook database I created and reviewed for every game in the app. It knows the difference between "how do I set up?" and "what happens when I run out of tiles?" And it's designed to be consistent, because that was the whole point. Ask the same question a hundred times, you get the same answer a hundred times.

I'd rather build a tool that's reliably right than one that sounds confident and gets it wrong. Especially in the middle of a game with your family.

What Rule Referee Actually Does

Rule Referee is a free iOS app. You pick your 3 free games, type your question in plain English, and get an answer.

No AI. No internet connection required. No hallucinated rules.

The rules are hand-built and tested by me. Each game in the app has a structured rulebook I created specifically for how players actually ask questions, not how rule lawyers would phrase them.

Currently it covers 15 games including Catan, Chess, Exploding Kittens, Mexican Train, Uno, Phase 10, Rummikub, and more. The next update adds Viticulture, Ticket to Ride, Wingspan, Monopoly, and Azul.

Where This Goes

My longer-term vision for Rule Referee is a publisher partner program where game publishers can have their games featured in the app. Players get official rules, built and verified by the people who made the game. Publishers get a new way to reach players at the exact moment they're most engaged: mid-game, with a question.

The first partner is already signed. <a href="https://dreadnaughtgames.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dreadnaught Publishing's</a> new game, Monsters, Magic, and Mayhem, will be included in the next update. I couldn't be more excited to have them on board.

The Real Point

I'm 24. I live in Mexico with my boyfriend, who is a marine artist. I left my day job last week to build full time. I write poetry. And I shipped an iOS app to the App Store.

Not because I had all the right skills. Because I had a problem I cared about solving and I didn't let "I've never done this before" be the reason to stop.

If it helps you settle a rules dispute, I'd love to hear about it. And if you have a minute to leave a review, it genuinely helps more people find the app.

Download Rule Referee on the App Store | Get it on Google Play