Need motivation for map making.

[TheGreatCthulhu]

Well, I'm no caver, but, first you have to develop a more coherent idea about what you want your game to be about - not in great detail, but in broad strokes. Think about the flow of the game, what should happen, when and how, and why. Think about what you want the player to experience.

Then take a pen and a piece of paper (still a great tool in the computer age!) and draw a sketch of the map, or more than one. Write comments, questions, labels, etc... Remember, this is a sketch, not a formal design document, so it doesn't have to look neat or get everything right. The purpose is to help you with your thought process, and to help you develop ideas and understand your future game better.

Then Google up some cave images, dark spooky passages, cave wildlife, etc., and see what elements you can use in your map (paper version), or maybe how your map should be changed in order to be more realistic.

Once you have a decent grasp of what your game is going to be and what the cave should look like and what it should provide in terms of gameplay, start modeling. But remember that you can make changes and improvements as you go. The important thing is not to start making something that later on turns out is not what you need; but you won't have that problem once you know the general direction you're aiming for.