Development advices

 - start with BeingTemplate.java and template.properties
 - add your creature in being.properties, so that you 
   don't have to load JAR file manually, also put path to my.properties file
   as last value of property (in this case it will compile 
   your classes automagically for you)
 - use -debug command line switch - it prints a lot of useful debug info
   (and also seeds random number generator in predictable way)
 - if in doubt how to do smth, or what particular method does
   feel free to consult SimpleBeing.java and engine source code
 - eventually test with "-secure" switch (after updating java.policy according
   to comment in JungleSecurity.java near CHECK_SECURITY, or with 
   -Djava.security.policy=full_path_to_java.policy_from distribution), or copy
   src/java.policy to $HOME/.java.policy
 - make incremental changes
 - cooperate with you friends to be able to have real opponents, or
   use http://www.electricjungle.ru portal to compete with other players
 - use JDK1.8, it has better performance and also some bugs that may affect
   Electric Jungle was fixed 

     Submission advices

 -  java -jar ejungle_distr.jar -makebeing path.to.properties.file
    will make being for you, if engine have't done that already
 -  if you're making being's JAR yourself, make sure you compiled with -target 1.8

     Tweaking

 - for better understanding of what's going on yom may to start engine 
   with -altui switch it will give you zooming capability
 - by default engine starts with network support, so you can use viewer.html
   to look what's going on in engine from browser (with an applet)
 - if you want to do fine tuning - you may useable -headless switch 
   which just starts game with no UI, runs it as fast as possible and 
   prints results

     SDK building advices

 - most likely you don't want this section, as creature 
   will be built automatically for you by the engine, so it's only
   for case you want to build engine itself
 - if working on Windows you likely should use Netbeans
 - just unpack distribution jar and modify beings.properties
   so that SimpleBeing's line ends with real path to simple.properties
   on your system
 - for Windows command line tools you have three options: ant, cygwin, build.bat
 - if using cygwin, make sure you have your JAVA_HOME set and 
   uses forward slashes, and that cygwin's bin directory on your path
 - for Unix - command line build is probably what you want if you're 
   in hackerish mood, otherwise Netbeans will also do pretty well
 - if using Netbeans, try to remove folder 'universum' with .class files, if
   you wish to rebuild engine, otherwise Netbeans may use older version