Further issues with scores in simple JS game

I recently had an issue with a simple JS game, which I asked about here: Issue with negative scores in a simple JS game

It was fixed after I was advised to fix the else if statement. After that it worked fine.

I copied this game and swapped out the maths guessing part for a capital city guessing part, leaving everything else the same. The structure of the if/else if statements remains the same. However I am having the same issue again with the score not calculating correct, it starts increasing by more than 1x each time a question is answered.

The JS is:

//Initial values assigned
let score = 0
let countDown = 10

//Start Button Triggers this countdown function:
function startCountdown(seconds) {
  document.getElementById("start").setAttribute('disabled', '') //Disables Start button once the game starts
  let counter = seconds;
    
  const interval = setInterval(() => {
    document.getElementById("timer").innerHTML = Math.floor(counter);
    counter--;
      
    if (counter < 0 ) {
      clearInterval(interval);
      game()
      startCountdown(countDown) //this function with "countDown" argument passed in starts a new countdown
    }
  }, 1000);
}

//This function triggers a new question
function game(){
  
  //Decreases the countdown time as the score gets higher:
  if (score > 5 && score < 11){
    countDown = 10-score/2
    
  }
  
 //This block is game questions and answers:
  
  const countries = [
    {ID:1,Country:"New Zealand",Capital:"Wellington"}, 
    {ID:2,Country:"Belarus",Capital:"Minsk"}, 
    {ID:3,Country:"Japan",Capital:"Tokyo"},
    {ID:4,Country:"Philippines",Capital:"Manila"},
    {ID:5,Country:"Mongolia",Capital:"Ulaanbaatar"},
    {ID:6,Country:"Switzerland",Capital:"Bern"}


    ];
  
    let random = Math.floor(Math.random() * countries.length);
    let random2 = Math.floor(Math.random() * countries.length);
    let random3 = Math.floor(Math.random() * countries.length);

    let chosen = countries[random];
    document.getElementById("challenge").innerHTML = `What is the capital city of<b>${chosen.Country}</b> ?`
  
  
 //let answer1 = Math.floor(Math.random()*500)
 //let answer2 = Math.floor(Math.random()*500)
 //document.getElementById("challenge").innerHTML = `What is <b>${answer1}</b> plus <b>${answer2}</b>?`
     let number1 = countries[random2].Capital;
     let number2 = chosen.Capital;
     let number3 = countries[random3].Capital;
     let gameNums = [number1, number2,number3]
     shuffle(gameNums)
  document.getElementById("button1").innerHTML = gameNums[0]
  document.getElementById("button2").innerHTML = gameNums[1]
  document.getElementById("button3").innerHTML = gameNums[2]
  
  //This function determines which answer is correct and incorrect:
  function handleClick(event) {

  if (event.target.tagName !== "BUTTON") {
    return;
  }

  let buttonValue = event.target.innerText;
  
    //Correct Answer:
    if (buttonValue == number2){
      document.querySelector("#result").innerText = "Correct!";
      document.getElementById("result").style.color = "green";
      score++
      document.getElementById("score").innerHTML = `Score = ${score}`
      game()
      }
    
    //Incorrect Answer:
    else if(buttonValue == number1 || buttonValue == number3){
       document.querySelector("#result").innerText = "Incorrect!";
       document.getElementById("result").style.color = "red";
       score--
          //This stops the score going below zero:
          if (score < 0){
          score = 0
          }
      document.getElementById("score").innerHTML = `Score = ${score}`
      game()
       }
    
    
}
  

//Listens for button clicks
document.querySelector(".buttons").addEventListener("click", handleClick);

}
  

//function for shuffling the array

function shuffle(array) {
  let currentIndex = array.length,  randomIndex;

  // While there remain elements to shuffle...
  while (currentIndex != 0) {

    // Pick a remaining element...
    randomIndex = Math.floor(Math.random() * currentIndex);
    currentIndex--;

    // And swap it with the current element.
    [array[currentIndex], array[randomIndex]] = [
      array[randomIndex], array[currentIndex]];
  }

  return array;
}

Codepen: https://codepen.io/tmnsoon/pen/yLpOmeX?editors=1010

Not sure why this is?

Thanks!