We previously reported on a mysterious, unreleased Neo Geo game being discovered by an enthusiast who got lucky in a reseller auction. Now, we’ve learned the true nature of the game, via a developer who actually worked on it back in the 1990s.

The game’s creator, Kengo Asai (known for The Last Blade, among other fighting games), was located and interviewed by Japanese website ITMedia (via Mad Mans Cafe).

Asai claims the game was originally referred to as “Darkseed” internally, however acquiring the trademark for that name was difficult (a game with the same name already existed), so they began calling it “Dragon’s Heaven.” They began developing the game in either late 1995 or the beginning of 1996.

As we previously reported, the game has interesting features like “Lawful”, “Neutral”, or “Chaotic” morality paths that change pending your decisions made in between battles, as well as characters experiencing bonuses or debuffs that changed with the time of day (the stages have multiple times of day).

Asai said lots of the staff working on the game came from Technos Japan, with lots of them also having worked on Voltage Fighter Gowkaizer. The game was submitted twice and rejected both times, leading to its eventual cancellation internally, due to “funding issues.”

Asai noted that printed circuit boards of unfinished or cancelled games like the one NeoTurfMasta originally discovered are usually not shared outside the developer or publisher. Despite saying he’s “a bit distraught” over the game being found in its unreleased form decades later, he’s proud of the find.