Sprunki began as a fan-made take on the drag-and-drop music game Incredibox, with players mixing loops from colourful characters like Durple. Fan mods such as Pyramixed rework those characters into darker, horror-themed versions, and short loops from those versions spread through TikTok, YouTube Shorts and soundboards as creators remixed the game's cute style into scary edits. Durple's horror loop stuck because it keeps the character recognisable while sounding corrupted, making it an easy shorthand for a Sprunki video turning sinister.