The Test Tribe's 23rd Porto Meetup

The Test Tribe 23rd Porto Meetup

Modern software systems are becoming more interactive, interconnected, and complex-from immersive user-driven experiences like games to distributed architectures dependent on multiple services and data sources.

At the 23rd Porto Meetup, we explore two complementary dimensions of quality engineering:

How to test interactive systems where user experience, rules, and behavior matter as much as functionality

How to gain control over environments and data to reliably test complex integrations and scenarios

Together, these sessions offer practical and conceptual insights into how testers and engineers can adapt their thinking, tools, and strategies to deliver quality in increasingly sophisticated systems.

Event Details

• Date: 11th February 2026 (Wednesday)
• Time: 18:30 (Portugal Time)
• Venue: ISS Tech R. de Santa Catarina 1232, 4000-457 Porto

SESSION 1

Game Testing: HowdoI//

Speaker: Tácio Dias Palhão Mendes, Developer at Wolters Kluwer (Basecone)

About the Session

What does it really mean to test a game?

This session explores the intersection between game testing and traditional software testing, highlighting both the similarities and the unique challenges of validating interactive systems designed around user experience, engagement, and emotion.

We’ll examine games as systems of rules that generate emergent behavior, and discuss how testing extends beyond functionality into areas like gameplay balance, usability, platform compliance, and player experience.

Finally, the session bridges game mechanics with business rules, demonstrating how familiar QA concepts-such as use cases, test hierarchies, and structured thinking-can be effectively applied within the game development context.

Key Takeaways

• What defines a game from a development and testing perspective
• Why testing games goes beyond functional validation
• How software engineering and QA concepts apply to game testing

About the Speaker

Tácio Mendes is a Developer at Wolters Kluwer (Basecone), working on software solutions for tax and accounting since June 2025.

He began his career as a Junior Developer at HSBC GLT after graduating in Software Development from FAI-MG, and later studied Digital Game Development at PUC-PR, driven by a passion for independent game creation.

With hands-on experience in both software engineering and game design, Tácio brings a strong focus on user experience, quality, and system behavior. He continues to explore game development as a personal pursuit while professionally building robust, high-quality software systems.

SESSION 2

Control Your Test Environment and Data with Service Virtualization

Speaker: Renato Putini, Commercial Director at Parasoft

About the Session

Creating and maintaining rich development and testing environments-capable of validating complex end-to-end flows, error scenarios, external integrations, and unavailable services-is often costly and difficult to scale.

Service and data virtualization offers a powerful alternative.

In this session, Renato introduces the fundamentals of service and data virtualization, a practice that starts at the developer’s desktop, integrates directly into the IDE, and scales across teams, organizations, and even partner ecosystems.

Through real-world success stories and three concrete case studies, you’ll see how virtualization can dramatically improve availability, behavior control, cost efficiency, and test data management-without the overhead of maintaining multiple physical environments.

Key Takeaways

• Understand the basics of service and data virtualization
• Learn how to simulate complex scenarios in a cost-effective way
• Explore real-world cases that improve test availability and data control

About the Speaker

Renato Putini is responsible for enterprise clients across the Americas and brings a strong background in software development, performance testing, and automation.

He began his career as a developer and later led a performance testing team, gaining deep expertise across the software development life cycle (SDLC), test automation, and application performance management.

Over the past decade, Renato has worked as an account executive partnering with large organizations to deliver automation-driven solutions that improve software quality, operational efficiency, and business outcomes.

Why You Should Attend

• Learn how to approach testing in interactive, user-driven systems
• Gain practical insights into controlling environments and test data
• Discover techniques that reduce cost and increase test reliability
• Expand your QA mindset beyond traditional system boundaries
• Connect with Porto’s growing QA, testing, and engineering community
• Be part of The Test Tribe’s 23rd Porto Meetup

About The Test Tribe

The Test Tribe is the world’s largest software testing community, empowering testers globally since 2018. With 700+ events and 150K+ members across 130+ countries, we bring testers together to learn, grow, and connect through meetups, conferences, cohorts, masterclasses, and more.

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