My name is Samantha Wren Nolton - S.W. Nolton for short - and Sauriana is my dream. I’ve designed a lot of games in my time, even published one successfully so far (HERD: The Dinosaur Survival Card Game), but no project has meant as much to me as Sauriana.

First conceived in 2014 as a creative outlet combining all of my favorite things - having grown up reading dinosaur books, watching Westerns with my folks, and loving the weird science of H.G. Wells and Mary Shelly - Sauriana is the culmination of every childhood hyperfixation, every imaginative scrap of weirdness, every bit of “me” that I could pour into a game - a unique, new genre which inspired the name of my company: FossilPunk. While I would not call Sauriana the original FossilPunk work - that honor belongs to James Gurney and his Dinotopia series which inspired me in ways I can’t even verbalize - it is the trope namer and codifier, as I invented this new term directly to describe the weird combination of Wild West, Victorian, Steampunk and Paleontology that is Sauriana.

The Saurotamaton is one of the earliest models designed for the game, blending steampunk with paleontology

Now, as 2025 nears its end, Sauriana’s redevelopment cycle finally does as well - I’ve spent the last six months painting a master set of miniatures (photos soon!), rewriting the rules set to be more modern, streamlined, and clear to understand, and working with my graphic designer to update stat cards and character profiles, redesign the rulebook, and more. We’ve even got an app in development for building your posse!

Stay tuned for more news here and follow our email list - Sauriana is far from extinct and 2026 is going to be HUGE!

Sauriana Relaunching 2026!