Minecraft 1.8, the latest adventure update to the hugely popular sandbox building indie video game written in Java by Swedish creator Markus "Notch" Persson, has been leaked.

Although Minecraft 1.8 was set for a Sept. 8 launch, the official release of the update has been postponed. But, according to Joystiq, Minecraft 1.8 has been leaked by Mojang right-hand man Jens "Jeb" Bergensten. Tweets by Persson indicate that he didn't oppose the premature release of the update to "expert users". But he tweeted, "If you do use it, remember to report bugs, and to feel slightly bad. ;)"

According to Joystiq.com, you can download the leaked update HERE.

The full version of the game is expected to be unveiled at the Official Minecraft Event on Nov. 18 to 29, at Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas Nevada. Versions for Android, Apple's iOS and Microsoft Corp. are also slated for release this year.

Although the game is still currently in "beta", Mojang, the video game developer founded by Persson, has already sold more than 3.4 million copies of Minecraft, which has been continually updated and patched since the release of the initial version in December.

The Minecraft 1.8 adventure update will be packed with new adventure elements including villages, dungeons, and new terrain plus a new "creative mode" that allows players to create constructions on a truly massive scale.

A blog post by Persson mid-week indicated that Minecraft is still in the works.

"I was putting in a few extra hours on Minecraft this weekend, refactoring code so biomes could directly decorate the terrain themselves rather than having the terrain check the biomes manually. That type of work is mostly just busy work, so it wasn't very interesting from a design perspective, but it was very rewarding from a programming perspective. Things were starting to fall into place, and biomes became much "cleaner"," Persson said in his blog post on Sept. 7.

Persson ended the blog post with this note, "I'm doing a high priority secret project this week (a prototype for a future possible project), but I already have at least three things I want to work on as soon as I get back on Minecraft work next week."

What could this priority secret project be?

A Sept. 8 post by Persson said that Mojang has hired a consultant to help set up some tracking and metrics and stuff. "The idea being that if we know how people use our websites, we can improve it more efficiently," he said.

Here's the Minecraft 1.8 trailer provided by Mojang:

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