The Stairwell has become a considerably more dangerous place in Roblox DOORS, with expanding fungal growth, aggressive enemies, crushing walls, and sprawling new environments turning a once relatively straightforward climb into a demanding survival experience. Thinknoodles explores the Access Granted update immediately after its release, discovering redesigned mechanics, new progression badges, collectible scrap, and a mysterious shop at the end of the journey. His enthusiastic reactions and willingness to experiment make the exploration entertaining, while repeated deaths and confusing encounters demonstrate just how dramatically the update changes the difficulty.
One of the most noticeable improvements is the Stairwell's expanded environmental design. Previously familiar areas now contain enormous interconnected rooms, garages, ventilation shafts, and increasingly disturbing fungal formations known as the Meld. Thinknoodles repeatedly expresses amazement at the scale of individual floors, sometimes finding that a single section feels larger than several areas from the earlier version combined. The continuously spreading growth adds visual tension, while new wall crushers introduce another hazard that requires careful timing and attention. These changes create a stronger horror atmosphere, although the enormous layouts occasionally make navigation frustrating rather than simply challenging.
Enemy behavior becomes a major focus as Thinknoodles struggles with Creak and Noise throughout multiple attempts. Noise appears considerably more sensitive to player movement and proximity, sometimes pursuing him relentlessly through complicated corridors and even ventilation systems. Creak remains a persistent threat, although its interactions with environmental hazards provide some unexpected moments of assistance. The combination creates genuinely tense situations, particularly when multiple enemies converge while the player searches desperately for a usable fire escape. Thinknoodles' startled reactions feel authentic, but his repeated difficulty managing Noise sometimes turns otherwise interesting exploration into extended sequences of frantic retreat.
The redesigned collection system introduces another important change. Rather than relying entirely on the previous gold-based mechanics, players can grind discarded objects into scrap, with different items producing different amounts. Thinknoodles gradually identifies the values of bottles, cans, monitors, and lamps while investigating shopping carts, garages, and the newly distributed grinders. The ability to process objects throughout the environment is a welcome convenience compared with transporting everything back to a central location. However, the inconsistent placement of grinders, limited useful loot on certain floors, and confusing shopping-cart interactions create unnecessary friction. His attempts to understand the Storage Wars achievement are particularly revealing because they demonstrate how poorly explained some of the revised systems initially appear.
Progression and navigation receive equally substantial attention. New maps, a useful compass, expanded ventilation routes, and alternative floor layouts offer additional ways to approach the climb, while revives provide another opportunity after a fatal mistake. Thinknoodles discovers that some floors emphasize dangerous Meld formations and fire escapes, while others concentrate more heavily on collectible objects and hostile encounters. His observations help establish practical survival strategies, including avoiding unnecessary confrontations, using maps before exploring enormous rooms, and preserving valuable resources. Unfortunately, the presentation sometimes becomes repetitive as he repeatedly loses his bearings, overlooks available navigation tools, and spends considerable time searching for exits that were visible on maps he had already encountered.
The most rewarding discovery arrives after Thinknoodles finally reaches the end of the Stairwell. A mysterious hooded figure offers items in exchange for accumulated scrap, revealing the purpose behind much of the collection system. Although he falls short of his original scrap target, he obtains a Jug of Starlight and earns the Super Size Me achievement. Further exploration reveals an additional route that allows players to loop the Stairwell, unlocking the Leg Day Never Ends badge. These discoveries give the lengthy journey a satisfying payoff and clarify several previously confusing objectives. His eventual recognition that collecting 100 scrap would provide enough gold for another achievement also supplies useful guidance for future attempts.
As a first-day exploration, the presentation succeeds through genuine curiosity, spontaneous discoveries, and a strong sense of excitement about the update. Thinknoodles openly acknowledges mistakes, revises assumptions, and tests mechanics rather than pretending to understand everything immediately. That honesty makes the experience engaging, particularly when unexpected hazards or discoveries overturn his expectations. Nevertheless, several questions remain unresolved, including the functions of certain items, the requirements for additional badges, and some unusual floor-generation behavior. Early performance problems and an extended sequence of unsuccessful attempts also affect the pacing. The result is more valuable as an entertaining firsthand investigation than as a polished, comprehensive guide to every new feature.
Pros
- Detailed exploration demonstrates substantial improvements to the Stairwell's environmental variety, scale, atmosphere, and overall difficulty.
- Genuine reactions to expanding Meld formations, wall crushers, and aggressive enemies create entertaining horror gameplay.
- Practical experimentation explains scrap collection, item values, distributed grinders, fire escapes, revives, and several navigation mechanics.
- The successful journey to the end reveals the hooded merchant, Jug of Starlight reward, and new Stairwell looping achievement.
- Thinknoodles openly corrects mistaken assumptions and gradually develops useful strategies through repeated attempts.
- Discussion of new and returning achievements provides valuable context for players interested in progression and completion.
Cons
- Repeatedly getting lost, overlooking maps, and struggling with the same enemies produces lengthy stretches of avoidable repetition.
- Several new mechanics remain unexplained or only partially understood, limiting the video's usefulness as a complete update guide.
- Frustrating grinder placement, sparse loot distribution, and confusing shopping-cart behavior slow the exploration without always producing meaningful discoveries.
- Early performance problems and frequent visual confusion make some encounters harder to follow.
- The extended runtime occasionally allows frantic reactions and resource-management detours to overshadow the most interesting new features.
Thinknoodles delivers an enthusiastic and frequently suspenseful exploration of an update that substantially expands DOORS' Stairwell with new hazards, environments, progression systems, and rewards. His genuine discoveries and eventual success make the journey satisfying, even when repetitive navigation problems and unresolved mechanics interrupt the momentum. Despite its uneven pacing, this is an entertaining and informative introduction to a significantly more ambitious survival challenge.
