Scorpion Solitaire Instructions

Overview

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.

Layout

Building Stacks / "Body" 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.
"Tail" 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.

Moving Cards

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. The following rules indicate how cards can be moved between stacks:

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.

Tips

Once all cards are face up, the game should be easily won (assuming the game is not blocked as described below). The focus should be to discern sequences of moves which will result in turning over a card.
Don't fill empty spaces until you need to.
There are two ways in which Scorpion can become blocked. Be familiar with these patterns to avoid moving cards into a dead end situation.
1. Reversed Sequence Having two cards in ascending order of on top of a card which has a rank one above the card on top all in the same suit. For example, in a four of clubs on top of a three of clubs which is on top of a five of clubs, the three and the four must be moved before the other can be placed in order, resulting in a deadlock.
2. "Criss-cross" This is a deadlock which occurs in two stacks, such as a nine of diamonds on the three of spades in one stack and the four of spades on the ten of diamonds.
Having empty spaces accept cards other than kings will allow these impasses to be broken.

Buttons

Clicking on these buttons will perform the following actions:

New Game

Begin a new game after shuffling the deck

Restart

Return to the original state of the current game

Undo

Return to the condition before the previous move was

Options

Bring up a window with the following options:

# of face down stacks: This option allows altering the number of building stacks containing three face down cards from the default of four. Decreasing the number of face down stacks will increase the probability of victory. A new game must be started for this option to take effect.
Empty spaces accept: This option enables empty building stacks to accept cards other than kings.

History

Version 1.00 (2000/2/26): First Public Release