On February 1, I posted about a video game that Griffin and his friend, James, submitted to the National Science Foundation’s Game Maker Awards competition. According to the official timeline, judging should have finished on March 14 and the winners would be announced on April 2.

Imagine Griffin’s surprise when he received this email on March 30:

Dear NSF Game Maker contestant,

Thank you for participating in the NSF Game Maker Awards. We are pausing the judging process until further notice. If an entrant was eligible for the competition at the time of their initial submission but has since aged out of the K-12 category due to delays in the competition timeline, they will remain eligible for judging and prize award. Their entry will be evaluated alongside current K-12 participants, ensuring fairness and continuity. No additional action is required from the entrant to maintain eligibility.

Please check the Game Maker Award website for updates.

Thanks,
The NSF Game Maker Awards team

Going to the website didn’t provide any additional information, though the contest pages have this information posted in the header of each page:

Also at the top of each page is a link to “Learn about NSF’s implementation of recent executive orders.”

Although it is not explicitly stated anywhere on the linked page, we assume that the competition was paused in response to these “recent executive orders.”

This is, of course, a minor thing. Griffin and James will be fine. But in our family, it felt like an ominous sign of how quickly the new administration’s priorities can directly affect us.

This may seem trite, but I am reminded of a haunting quote from The Fellowship of the Ring, in reference to the dark lord Sauron:

“His arm has grown long indeed,” said Gimli, “if he can draw snow down from the North to trouble us here three hundred leagues away.”

“His arm has grown long,” said Gandalf.

These are the words that echo through my head today.