Oh, someone's lurking alright.
We did it, we beat the final boss of Vinesauce. Let's just retire now.
— Vinny (Vinesauce)
Terminal 7
, a.k.a. Terminal 7: a Source Mod, is an entire source mod fangame based around a Vinesauce inside joke, with complete abandon of the relatively lighthearted tone from the source material.
Created by Nooke, the game itself is a psychological thriller, where you play as Luigi with severe mental problems (stemming from his terminal brain cancer) through varying gameplay changing levels and sometimes psychedelic or downright bizarre environments.
The story and premise revolves around Luigi escaping Bowser's fortress to reunite with his brother at home, combating Bowser's minions on the way, or so it may seem. A more truthful telling of these events unfold during the third act.
"THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE, LUIGI."
- Absence of Evidence: The lack of a baby or a dog in Mario's apartment, despite the dog food and baby crib.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewer level is big enough to run and jump around, and for Luigi to dodge an entire squad of troopers sent to kill him.
- Accidental Kidnapping: Luigi kidnapping Peach without knowing about it.
- Adaptation Expansion: This fangame, contrasting the single off-hand joke it originated from.
- Adaptation Inspiration: Massive tone shift from the source material.
- Arc Number: Seven. Obvious from the title, but it goes several levels deep (especially concerning Vinny's stream of the game). The game was released very close to Vinesauce's 7th anniversary, and by the end of the original livestream Vinny had accumulated over 7000 viewers. The song that plays during the credits, "When the Lights Went Out", is the seventh (and final) song of an indie album titled "Seven". 26 also appears several times near the end of the game in corrupted textures and in the coin-count if the player picks up the singular coin on Level 1-1.
- Big Bad: Bowser, apparently, as he's sending his troops after Luigi. Ultimately subverted, as the troops were just police officers trying to capture the criminally insane Luigi, meaning "Bowser" would just be the chief of police, if he even exists.
- Cerebus Retcon: A few meta examples related to the Vinesauce stream:
- The entire mod is this to the original Terminal 7 joke, asking and answering the question of "What if Luigi had brain cancer?"
- The most famous part of the Vinesauce streams, the corruptions, appear in the final sequence of the mod, where Luigi plays through a corrupted version of 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. to represent how his mind has deteriorated.
- Crappy Carnival: Level Four, Toadstool Carnival, which appears to be more of a rotting and partially-condemned boardwalk. It doesn't help that it's being occupied by Bowser's troops, who are searching for the escaped Luigi.
- Darker and Edgier: This fangame, even if the original story wasn't so lighthearted to begin with. In fact, when Luigi reaches his brother's apartment, things become even worse. Lampshaded by Vinny:Vinny: (As Luigi) Mario, no! Jesus fucking Christ, Mario, please! This wasn't supposed to be in this lighthearted terminal seven fangame, what the fuck?
- Driven to Suicide: Mario. Mainly due to financial problems and stress regarding his brother's well being.
- Dying Dream: The final level, Meltdown, is basically Luigi's brain breaking down from his brain cancer and the realization that the Mushroom Kingdom doesn't exist, and that he killed Peach.
- Easter Egg: Plenty of them, such as the secret Pizza room and "Do You Have A Bad PC?" advertisement. Also present are several obligatory references to Vinesauce, such as the armor pickups being literal bottles of "Vine Sauce".
- Eldritch Location: The final level, Meltdown. Disregarding that it's a Dying Dream, it's a Black Bug Room that manifests as several enemy-filled corridors floating in the middle of a tube of fire, and as you progress it gets increasingly broken up.
- Foreshadowing: While going through the halls of Bowser's Fortress, you can find a bulletin board with a news clipping that details the establishment's "decreased medical funding". This provides an early hint not only to the place's true nature, but also to the situation that Luigi's brother has been put into as a result of this apparent financial trouble. Also, when entering Mario's apartment, one of the first things visible is a newspaper article on a table about a serial murderer on the loose.
- The suicide note on Mario's computer contains a line saying "Wherever you are Peach, I love you," suggesting that Peach has been missing for some time...
- Frying Pan of Doom: Luigi's first weapon, he repeatedly grabs more throughout the game after losing his old ones. Technically it's a small pot; the HUD calls it a sauce-pan.
- Great Escape: The first level, Bowser's Fortress, in which Luigi picks his cell lock with a pair of pliers, makes his way through the castle, and escapes down the sewers, while killing any of Bowser's troops in his way.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: When Luigi discovers that he killed Peach in a state of delusion caused by his brain cancer, he takes it... poorly.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Luigi in the last level where he suffers a mental breakdown.
- How We Got Here: The game ends in an 8-bit realm where Mario (seeming alive and well) and Dr. Mario talk about Luigi's diagnosis. The diagnosis? Terminal 7 brain cancer.
- Mental World: Much of the game takes place in one to varying degrees. The Mushroom Kingdom was always this, and Luigi's realization of this fact precipitates his mental breakdown.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Luigi's reaction when he discovers Peach's skeleton and realizes that he's responsible for her death. The words "What Have I Done" even appear as a Freeze-Frame Bonus on the final level's intro screen!
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Luigi is supposed to recover from his illness, but he escaped the asylum, the cops started a manhunt and Mario commited suicide after noticing the news about Luigi's escape.
- No Antagonist: By the end of the game, Bowser's Troops can't really be called villainous, as they're Hero Antagonist police officers trying to capture Luigi, who's criminally insane. At the same time, Luigi's hard to call a Villain Protagonist, as he's too far gone to realize the full ramifications of his actions, and he feels genuine horror when he realizes that he killed Peach.
- Noodle People: All the characters are stretched Mario Party models to be Half-Life 2-sized, giving this effect. The slight Uncanny Valley effect this creates, along with the models being pretty low-res compared with the native Source-engine environments helps to sell the implied Through the Eyes of Madness going on.
- Nothing Is Scarier: When Luigi finally finds the key to Mario's locked room, he enters to find nothing but a black, ominous void. You have to walk quite a bit until Mario's real bedroom with his hanging corpse slowly comes into view. It gets even worse when you have to walk back into the void to continue on without being able to see the exit any more... the ground becomes sloshy, and then outright covered in some liquid, and the tiny, pulsing spotlights you eventually find only serve to illuminate walls different from the ones inside Mario's apartment.
- One-Man Army: Luigi manages to kill many civilians, police, and SWAT members during his rampage.
- Stealth Pun / Visual Pun: One of the Easter eggs is a room with pizza for a floor and pepperonis hopping around. In other words, it's a pepperoni secret.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: It becomes evident quickly that Luigi isn't killing Koopas, Goombas, and Toads. This trope goes full force when Luigi begins hallucinating the environment around him, especially towards the end. Examining a picture of a young man with a bowl haircut in Luigi's room will make him comment that "Mario says this is a picture of me... I don't believe him.", showing that even his own appearance (and likely Mario's too) is subject to this.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The game is normally a first person shooter, with Manhunt-esque first person stealth segments based on moving between shadows The gameplay shifts to a different style on four separate occasions:
- The first change is a brief underwater section reminiscent of early games except in 3D, with Luigi moving between air-bubble streams.
- Second, the majority of Underground Ride is
Nintendo Hard first-person platforming. - During most of Peach's Castle, the game turns into a First-Person Adventure game, with you selecting directions to go and where to use items you pick up.
- Finally, during the last bit of gameplay in the game, you play through a 2D Platformer- specifically, a corrupted recreation of the first level from the original Super Mario Bros.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable: It's possible to take too much damage during the sewer level so that the spikes towards the end would kill you, making you unable to complete the level. Though you can always turn on god mode or noclip. Fortunately, the spikes have been removed in the latest version of the mod.
- Waking Up Elsewhere: Luigi, finding himself by Peach's Castle after driving all night without knowing about it.
- You Wake Up in a Room: Luigi waking up in Bowser's Fortress (that's a lie) at the start of the game.
- Wham Shot: In Level Seven, Big Boo's Hunt, entering Mario's room and discovering Mario's hanged corpse.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Luigi. His goal was just to get home and find Mario, but his delusions made him attack and kill untold numbers of security guards, police officers, and civilians, believing them to be hostile Koopa Troopas and zombified Toads. It's also implied that he had some kind of involvement in Peach's death, though in the original meme it was Mario's doing.
"So, I got a little terminal 7? Alright! I'll tell you what. I'm going terminal 8 now! TERMINAL 8!"
