Arenas are the simplest allocation scheme ever.

  // Start of frame
  void *arena    = malloc(LOTS_OF_MEMORY);
  void *next_ptr = arena;

  // Allocate something
  object   = *next_ptr;               // return that value
  next_ptr = object_size + alignment; // crash if out of memory
 
  // End of frame
  free(arena);

By the way, such "separate complex ad hoc" memory allocation schemes are the reason why manual memory management is faster than garbage collection. If you did everything with malloc(), it would be slower (unless the GC language allocates much more than C, which they often do).