The record
About General Mao
General Mao is a free online version of Mao, the card game whose rules are secret. Here the rules are not invented by a smug winner at the table. They are invented and enforced by the General, an AI referee that watches every play, issues penalty cards, and never explains why.
What the game is
Mao looks like an ordinary shedding game: match the rank or the suit and empty your hand to win. Underneath sits a secret ruleset. Break a hidden law and you draw a penalty card, along with the category of your offense but never the rule itself. Two to six players share a table in the browser, argue in chat, and deduce the laws together until someone goes out and the record is read aloud.
Why an AI referee
A human rulemaster already knows the rules, which spoils the game for them and makes it nearly impossible to play cold with strangers. The General removes that person. Its rules engine is deterministic and tested: the same play in the same state always draws the same penalty. Each ruleset is validated for consistency before a match begins, and the secret rules never leave the server until the match is over.
Who makes it
General Mao is an independent, open-source project built and maintained by Karthik Subramanian. The full source code, design notes, and decision log are public on GitHub. It is free to play, has no ads during play, needs no account, and is released under the MIT license.
It runs on Cloudflare: the site on Cloudflare Pages, and each live table inside its own Durable Object. If you enjoy it, you can buy the General a coffee.