Even in the days of free-to-play, there’s still something cool about a paid game going free, that whole factor of a game that you once had to pay money for being available for no cost whatsoever. Even better is when they’re free for the first time – you don’t know if you’ll ever get a chance to get these again at a 100% discount. There’s three really cool first-time freebies live today on the App Store, all worth checking out:

Slayin, $0.99 FDG’s 2D action-RPG has been $0.99 ever since its launch, but now you can pick it up for free. You run around automatically on a one-screen arena, using your character’s abilities, deployed with just one button, to fight off wave after wave of enemies and the occasional boss. This one’s a top-notch game, especially for no cost.

Sentinel 4: Dark Star, $0.99 Origin8’s action-packed tower defense game is free in support of their Steam Greenlight campaign. This seems backwards, to give away a game for free so that they can…sell the game, but the benefits of being able to sell on Steam likely outweigh the losses from whatever the game was selling right now. Economics! Still, if they’re offering it for free, this is a solid tower defense title, pick it up!

Cubic!, Free It’s kind of funny that this game, which has a Threes ($5.99) influence, is going free as a free version of Threes is coming out. But unlike all the 2048 clones, this game actually takes influence from Threes while winding up being an ineresting little puzzle game about strategically moving your number tiles around to try and protect them from oncoming numbers. It’s pretty cool, and has been updated since launch with a much-needed portrait mode option.