Gyroid

Your touchpoint gyroid comes installed next to your house. This is where you save your game, leave items for the fellow human players, and the various other nefarious chores it can help you with. The touchpoint gyroids move in a slow 80's liquid dance starting from your purchase of the house. Their pace quickens upon the approach of the character that is associated with their house. It's disturbing.

Musical gyroids appear buried in the dirt the day after it rains or snows in your village. Supposedly made of clay, you would think they would more resemble the fabled golems, instead they are quirky almost robotic creatures. The musical gyroids will make on noise while wiggling and gyrating. Their sound is usually hinted at by their name, from the bovoid and it's lowing moo, to the tootoid and it's fartlike exclamations. There are (i think) 39 kinds.

A - Z Name List
Alloids
Bovoids
Bowtoids
Buzzoids
Clankoids
Croakoids
Dekkoids
Dingloids
Dinkoids
Drilloids
Drofloids
Echoids
Fizzoids
Freakoids
Gargloids
Gongloids
Harmonoids
Howloids
Lamentoids
Lullaboids
Metatoids
Nebuloids
Oboids
Oombloids
Percoloids
Plinkoids
Poltergoids
Puffoids
Quazoids
Rhythmoids
Rustoids
Sproids
Sputnoids
Squelchoids
Strumboids
Timpanoids
Tootoids
Warbloids

Gyroids count as a type of furniture and can only really be seen when dropped inside a house. You can turn them off and on, BUT you can only have 14 turned on at once. Once you attempt to turn on the 15th gyroid in a room, another random one will turn off. They don't really count as a vital part of playing Animal Crossing but they are fun interesting little oddities that make weird sounds and seem like they were named by Willy Wonka.

My favorite quote about gyroids is when I got a msg from my roomate (about her touchpoint gyroid) proclaiming :
"I can't get the damn robot to hold the shovel."

It's worth adding that a charming feature of musical gyroids is that they run in sync, on short loops. With, say , 8 gyroids, you have a lot of scope for composition. Set off a bassline, pitch in some bells, select some percussion... they all loop independently, so the point at which you set one off is an important factor. There are also some gyroids that make noises at random intervals, and adding them gives your loop some necessary variation. Gyroids also seem to keep time with the various songs you can play on your hi-fi equipment.

The 15-voice limit is rather annoying (especially as the GameCube has 64 audio channels), since it's difficult to arrange a large collection of gyroids so that you can turn them all on or off as you like (you need to be standing next to one to do this). Quite often, I find a gyroid has been automatically deactivated by the voice limit, and is impossible to reach without a major furniture reshuffle. I suppose the voice limit allows other ambient sounds (the ticking of a clock or clacking of a Newton's Cradle, for example) to play unhindered, as well as any music you might put on.

I haven't yet seen any gyroid compositions posted on the web, but if they aren't there already it can only be a matter of time. A possile follow-on project for Nintendo Teenage Robots, perhaps.