Even though all cards other than kings can be moved to only one location in Scorpion, the game is less mechanical and more challenging than it would appear. The Scorpion layout has two areas which represent the body and tail of a scorpion. When an impasse is reached, the stack representing the "tail" of the scorpion is moved to the building stacks. This will hopefully end the deadlock. While Scorpion has the usual objective of arranging each suit in order, stacks in which each suit are assembled are not provided. The game is won when four building stacks contain each suit in descending order from king to ace.

The seven building stacks initially containing seven cards compose the body of the scorpion. The first four stacks have three face down cards. The face down cards will be turned over when the cards above them are removed. The three cards which comprise the "tail" of the scorpion are initially under the button panel. When there are no more moves which can be made in the scorpion body, clicking on the tail will move a card from it to the first three stacks of the scorpion body.

To move cards between stacks, click on the source stack (which will highlight it) and then click on the destination. If a card below the top of the source stack is clicked, all cards between the clicked card and the stack top will be selected. Cards can be transferred between stacks if there is a face up card in the source stack which has the same suit and a rank one less than the card at the top of the destination stack. All cards above the transferred card are moved along with it. A king, and all cards above it, can be moved to an empty building stack. Clicking on the tail will redistribute its contents to the first three building stacks.