Baron Lionel will be the villain.
Due to his predominantly purple color scheme, heavy resemblance to Dracula and Ganondorf, and the fact his Kickstarter profile seems to say almost nothing but nice things about him while making a point of his reclusive nature.- Building from this, Thorne, who was Lionel's guard captain and is described as a terrorist in everything but name, will be Good All Along (albeit a Well-Intentioned Extremist).
The story takes place in the universe of Shovel Knight.
The animal-headed people, emphasis on digging, and the presence of spooky old castles and magic all fit this. Perhaps Mina the Hollower is a different region of that world or a later time period, a century or two later.- Seems to already be Jossed. In this
interview with GameXplain, Alec Faulkner himself stated that they're trying to avoid connecting threads between the two universes.
There will be atleast one Cat-and-Mouse Boss.
Assuming there's at least one Troper in Yacht Club Games, I doubt they could resist a Stealth Pun like that. If this hypothetical fight involves Lionel in some way, down the bottle.