well, for first_struct i am doing exactly that - allocating the struct and the strings at the same time and then releasing them at the same time, at least in the second version. Not releasing the strings when i released the struct was what i disliked about the first version. First_save is different though, its supposed to be a permanently allocated area of memory (permanent for the duration of the run-time anyways.) The reason for that is because if I allocate first_save, call add_struct(first_save,sizeof(save_struct)), and then later release first_save ... well i believe that would cause an engine crash when game_save tries to save an invalid area of memory right?