Great news for those of you who were thrilled about the inclusion of NPC towns, but dismayed at the fact that NPCs would not yet be populating them as Minecraft 19 will surely be something to keep your eye on. In fact, you can do more than simply keep your eye on it, you can download it right now!

As Mojang did with 1.8 they’ve gone ahead and released a test build of the update in .jar format which you can now download. Expect bugs, but other than that there are no strings attached.

As I mentioned above, 1.9 brings NPCs. No I don’t know what they look like or what they do yet as I haven’t gotten the opportunity to check it out (will today though!). I’m very curious to see how NPCs act and react to the baddies that will spawn though.

Also of note is a little pre-holiday surprise as 19 apparently brings with it some snowmen which you can build and which will actually come alive! Amazing! Just refrain from taking them into warmer climates or they will, I assume, melt into oblivion. So sad…

[Minecraft, Download]