It’s hard to overstate just how much of a big deal the Austin Powers franchise was, at what is now a very specific moment in time. The first movie, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, a broad James Bond parody which saw a British super spy from the ’60s first cryogenically frozen, then reawakened in the ’90s, drew much of its comedy from its fish-out-of-water, constantly horny lead character’s adjustment to the modern world, as he sought to deal with his equally time displaced nemesis, Dr. Evil, and his ridiculously silly ransom demands. It was released to a muted reception in 1997, but became a huge, post-theatrical hit when released on VHS (see, it was a while back!) and DVD.
Given that the third, and so far final, movie in the franchise, Austin Powers: Goldmember, was released way back in 2002, the franchise has been on ice for almost as long as the eponymous secret agent was in the original film. Which means that the short-lived 1999 Collectible Card Game (or CCG), the first set of which was based on the then-new second movie, has been, like its subject matter, all but lost in time.
Of course, here at Card Gamer, we do like to delve into the history of our hobby as much as we can, and couldn’t resist the chance to catch up with the supposedly irresistible charms of the famous, bespectacled dandy and his cast of double entendre-monikered oddballs. Was the Austin Powers CCG groovy, baby? Or was it a lazy tie-in designed to part gamers with (dramatic music plays as we zoom into Dr. Evil’s face) one million dollars? Let’s thaw the Austin Powers CCG out of cryogenic suspension and find out!
Getting Started With the Austin Powers CCG
Your first port of call with the Austin Powers CCG will likely be the Starter Deck pack, which contains two 30 card decks (one Good and one Evil); this is enough for two players to learn and play the game. Note that only one set was released for the game; a set based on The Spy Who Shagged Me, so this will be the only Starter pack you’ll find.
One thing that needs to be pointed out at this stage is that, though the two-deck Starter pack caters to two-player games, the game is actually designed to be played by more than two players, with players separated into Good and Evil teams, and is definitely much better when played in a group.
The problem with that is that each player needs their own 30-card deck, and they need to ensure that they have a 30-card deck specifically built with the right cards; with two opposing teams, players must have a Good deck (with the cards having red backs, sporting a photo of Austin Powers) or an Evil deck (blue-backed cards with Dr. Evil himself on the image, with his infamous evil pinky smirk pose; more on that later!).
Once two (or more) players have their side chosen, with players of opposing factions sat next to each other around the table, everyone shuffles their own deck, deal themselves six cards, and a starting player is chosen to begin play.
How To Play a Game of Austin Powers CCG
The rulebook is absolutely packed with references and jokes from the Austin Powers movies, and the game goes out of its way to include famous lines woven through its mechanics too. It’s a nice touch, and fans of the movies, certainly back in the day, would have had a blast just learning to play the game!
Each turn, a player will have two actions. This can be playing an Agent (there’s no cost for doing this; they’re just immediately played into your play area), making a Shag or Assassination attempt (essentially combat, and this is the key to winning the game; more of this in the next section), using a Swinger card, or using a Happening card.
A Swinger card is essentially an event with two choices (on a green background), and a Happening is a card which makes the active player perform a physical action (on a red background; in the case of Good cards, you make a peace sign with your fingers; for Evil it’s an evil pinky smirk), and the last person around the table to copy the action must pay the penalty specified on the card, which then goes to its owner’s score pile.
There are Special Agent cards called Ship Agents; these are identified by a symbol showing Dr. Evil’s rather phallic rocket. These can be played without using an action, and opponents may play one of their own Ship Agents in response, even on your turn. You can then play another Ship Agent, but that may mean they can also play another; this can continue until the chain is broken. For the uninitiated, this mimics the classic scene in the movie, in which innuendos and double entendres about the rocket’s appearance are cleverly cut in sequence, to produce a very long (ahem) joke.
Agents are separated into two types: Shaggers or Assassins. To attempt to Shag an enemy Agent, the Agent making the attempt must be of the opposite sex to the target (except for two very specific character cards, where that is overruled), and each Agent must be a Shagger (with lips on the top left of the card). Assassination attempts must be performed by an Assassin, on an enemy Assassin; gender makes no difference, but they must have the gun symbol on the top left of their card.
Each Agent has a value in four different categories, known as Vibes; these categories are color-coded and named as follows: Groovy (red), Shagadelic (blue), Randy (green) and Creepy (purple). These don’t add to the attempt, but instead are used to determine whether or not you can play a Frickin’ Bone card to support your attempt.
The active player declares their target, and the defending player can then play a Frickin’ Bone card from their hand in defense. The Frickin’ Bone card’s Vibes requirements must be met by the total Vibes of all cards in the play area of the targeted Agent’s owner in order for it to be played. Then the active player can play a Frickin’ Bone card in response (following the same rules around Vibe requirements), the defender has another chance to play one, and so on. If a player can’t play a Frickin’ Bone, they can ask other players for help, by asking “Can someone throw me a Frickin’ Bone here?” (another famous and often repeated line of dialogue from the movies). Other players on their team can then throw a Frickin’ Bone card onto the relevant Agent; the first one to land is the one that is used to assist (any others are returned to the hands of their respective player).
This continues until no more Frickin’ Bones can be played by a player; if they can’t play one in response, they lose the attempt. The winner gets to add their Agent and any Frickin’ Bones they played to their score pile (this removes them from play). Players who contributed a Frickin’ Bone get their own card back, which is added into their score pile. The loser discards their Agent and all Frickin’ Bones used to assist them.
How To Win a Game of Austin Powers CCG
To secure victory, a player must have at least 100 Mojo (if they’re playing as Good characters) or 100 Billion Dollars (with an Evil deck) in their score pile. The game moves surprisingly quickly towards victory, even with multiple players, so it may be advisable to play a few rounds if you’re looking to spend a bit of time with its psychedelic, perhaps shagadelic, ambience.
Is the Austin Powers CCG Groovy, Baby?
At first glance, the Austin Powers CCG feels like it might be a bit of a lazy cash-in, hoping that its reliance on puns, movie quotes, innuendo and attempted outrageousness such as the Shag mechanic would be enough to appeal to fans of the films. Certainly, reading through the rules more than two decades after the third film was released (and a whole quarter of a century since the specific film the set was based on), it can either cause players to cringe or fondly remember the once-dominant, long-dormant franchise.
If your tendency is towards the latter, and you affectionately replay those classic scenes in your mind as you learn the game, you are very likely to find that the Austin Powers CCG is actually, surprisingly, a great deal of fun. The biggest issue the game has is that it is, at its core, not really designed like a CCG at all; it’s a bawdy party game, with bold, bright, colorful, and amusing card design, and it requires a certain silly and participatory mindset in order to be enjoyed. It pretty much requires players to all be fans of the Austin Powers movies too, given the reliance on movie quotes and specific gags that are woven into its elements (most obviously, the Frickin’ Bones and Ship Agent game mechanics).
It also suffers from a weak Starter set; though it’s perfectly functional to learn the game with, you’ll really need more than just two players to fully enjoy the experience. The Agent cards, Austin Powers and Dr. Evil themselves aside (of which you get just one of each) are also incredibly underpowered, and it can be a struggle to play Frickin’ Bones when you often can’t meet the Vibes requirements.
It also doesn’t help that some cards just don’t feel designed for use with the Starter decks; for example, one of each deck’s Swinger card’s abilities is, ridiculously, to open a sealed Austin Powers booster pack, place a Good/Evil Agent (depending on your deck type) directly into your play area and the rest of the Good/Evil cards (again, just the one type) in your hand. Another references the Mini Me card, which isn’t in the deck at all.
Quibbles with the Starter Deck construction aside, it’s such a simple and fun game, that if you can get a group of likeminded Austin Powers fans together to play, it’s actually incredibly enjoyable. If you do manage to get ahold of booster packs (and they really are very cheap to get ahold of these days, as are the Starter Decks; you can easily build multiple decks with a few Starters and a good selection of booster packs for around $20-$30), deckbuilding is incredibly easy with the ‘6-by-5’ rule.
Each card has a row of six dots in the bottom left corner, and one dot will be colored per card. You simply have five cards per color in your deck, and you’re ready to play. Just like the rules themselves, and the game in practice, it’s designed to be genuinely straightforward and to get actual play going as soon as possible.
What Happened to the Austin Powers CCG?
The mid to late ’90s saw a bit of a gold rush occur when it came to CCGs; in the wake of Magic: The Gathering’s ongoing success, publishers were falling over themselves to find the next big thing, developing original franchises and getting hold of various licenses to produce new games, in the hope that something would stick. Very few games lasted, unable to find themselves a large enough player base, and the vast majority of games disappeared as quickly as they turned up.
It seems that this was the case with the Austin Powers CCG. Publishers Decipher had already seen massive success with their Star Trek and Star Wars CCGs, and were looking to expand their range even further. Launched alongside the second film The Spy Who Shagged Me, and making use of as many characters and aspects from it as possible, the plan was to revisit the first film’s events, characters, and settings in the next set. Sadly, the International Man of Mystery set was not to be, and despite its announcement in the rulebook for the set of The Spy Who Shagged Me, the game seems to have floundered and been quickly discontinued. The sheer volume of sealed Starter Decks, booster packs, and booster boxes still available online tell a sad tale of a game which simply didn’t find an audience, which is a massive shame. Though sometimes our Reshuffle articles shine a spotlight on games which failed because they were, frankly, terrible (Wizard In Training and the Doctor Who TCG immediately come to mind), we also take a look at games which struggled to find their place in an overcrowded market that was much less mainstream at the time, and perhaps would do a lot better in today’s more open-minded and varied CCG scene.
It’s hard to imagine the serious, hardcore gamers who made Magic: The Gathering such a success being compelled to buy into a silly Austin Powers CCG in the ’90s, but in the contemporary world, party games such as Exploding Kittens and Cards Against Humanity are huge, mainstream successes. Both of those games, as well as countless others, have gameplay based around humor, sometimes edgy and adult. While not strictly fitting the definition of collectible, each can be expanded with new packs, which do seem to also sell pretty well to gamers hungry for more of their loose mechanics and humorous subject matter, which often relies on player participation to be enjoyable.
That’s exactly the kind of vibe that the Austin Powers CCG has, and it’s a genuinely fun game in the right company, with a decent selection of cards. It just, well, came too soon, though of course its time has now well and truly passed, given how the Austin Powers franchise has slipped out of popular culture as a whole. Like its leading man, Austin Powers, if the TCG was brought out of cryogenic stasis today, it might seem a bit crass and out-of-date on the surface, but it’s actually pretty groovy if you give it a chance.
